The Night of the Perfidious Professor
by The Wild Wild Whovian
Summary: The promised sequel to my one-shot TNO Villar's Vengeance. Two free tickets to a boring lecture put Jim and Artie on the scene of a shooting. But, as is so often the case, all is not as it seems…
1. Teaser

_A quick reminder for those who may not have recently viewed the Manzeppi episodes (TNOT Eccentrics and TNOT Feathered Fury): the villainous Count Manzeppi was portrayed by Victor Buono, and the ventriloquist Villar by Richard Pryor._

 _Any references to another show from the 60's with another West in it — to wit, Adam West — are purely intentional._

 **Teaser**

"You know what, Jim?"

"What's that, Artie?" The two Secret Service agents, James West and Artemus Gordon, were strolling along a street in San Francisco, dressed to the nines in their best evening clothes, tickets in their pockets as they headed for a night out, although not exactly a night on the town.

"I've been thinking about it…"

"Oh, that could be dangerous."

"Ha ha ha. No, listen, Jim. Once again we've received an invitation with free tickets included to attend a performance _—_ or in this case, a lecture _—_ from someone we don't know, a completely unsolicited invitation. You follow me?"

"Mm-hmm. And?"

"Well, it's just that for us to accept such invitations in the past hasn't always worked out so well."

"You're thinking of that magic show, aren't you? The one that turned out to be Col Vautrain's way of embroiling us in his time travel plot to change the outcome of the Civil War?"

"Yes, I am. And in a way, I'm also thinking of that time we began receiving newspapers printed a day in advance, and one of them led us to attend a performance of another magic act _—_ with tragic results."

"So you think that the current set of tickets to hear this lecture by…" Jim pulled out his ticket and read from it by the light of a nearby streetlamp. "…Prof Elroy McWilliams of Yale University, noted authority on the Middle Ages _—_ you think there's something fishy about this?"

"Well, yes. Fishy, or perhaps a bad practical joke! I mean, look at this! Could there possibly be a drier topic for a two-hour lecture than…" And now Artie consulted his own ticket. "…'The Superstitious Beliefs and Practices of Mediaeval Europe, With Practical Application to the Modern Western Hemisphere'? Great jumping balls of St Elmo's Fire, what a title!"

"Well, maybe we'll get lucky and a magic show will break out."

Artie rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah! And with one of us to be inveigled into volunteering from the audience, only to be spirited away _— poof!_ _—_ in a puff of smoke!"

Jim gave a small smile. "Ah, but it might well be worth it as long as the magician has a pretty girl for his assistant, right, Artie?"

"Oh, well, _that!"_ Artie replied. Then he nudged Jim. "Ah… what's going on up there?"

They were walking along the board sidewalk amidst a loose crowd of others out for a stroll in the evening. Ahead of them they saw one pair of pedestrians whose mode of travel was distinctly peculiar: the two men were weaving along, laughing and leaning on each other as if drunk, but the strangest thing about the pair was that they were walking backwards.

Everyone else on the sidewalk, in order to avoid the happy couple in their reverse promenade, saw fit to give the giddy duo a wide berth. Unfortunately, the person walking directly in front of the pair _—_ which is to say, behind their backs _—_ and with whom the drunks kept tipsily colliding, was a man wearing smoked-glass spectacles and sweeping his white cane back and forth before him.

"That's not good," murmured Artie as one of the drunks lurched into the blind man yet again, then laughed uproariously.

"No, it isn't," Jim agreed. Without actually running, he strode a bit faster to catch up with the drunks. "Look, friends," he said calmly, catching each by an arm, "you need to walk properly and stop bothering those around you."

" _Bothering!"_ said the one, slipping his arm out of Jim's grasp. "D'… d'you hear that, son? This fellow says we're, we're _bothering_ folks!"

"Also calls us friends, Pa," said the other, his bleary eyes narrowing. "But I ain't, ain't never seen the likes o' him before in all my days. An' if there's any, anyone _bothering_ folks out here, it's him!" With that Drunk Junior hauled off to paste Jim one across the chops.

Jim ducked and whirled the sot around so that he was now holding the man's arm up behind his back. "Now, now, you don't want to do that," he said reasonably.

"Oh, he don't, does he?" said Drunk Senior, even as his self-identified son _—_ who to Jim's eyes didn't look more than two years younger than his supposed father, if even that much _—_ yelped out, "Pa!"

"Jim, watch out!" called Artie. For Senior had suddenly produced a gun.

And on that note the sidewalks emptied as all the other pedestrians found on the instant somewhere else to be, leaving behind only the two drunks along with Jim and Artie. Ah, and one other. For in the hurly-burly of the crowd scattering, someone had knocked into the blind fellow and sent him sprawling, his cane and glasses landing in the street. Artie hurried to help him up and out of the way.

"Let go o' my boy, you des, d'spicabul dastard!" slurred the drunk with the gun as he messily cocked the hammer. "Let 'im go!"

Jim eyed his unsteady opponent. Dressed in his best suit, Jim hadn't brought a gun with him, nor had Artie. Assessing what would bring the quarrel to its quickest and least dangerous solution, he released Junior who rushed instantly to his pa's side.

"All right," said Jim, holding his hands out to his side, "I've done as you asked."

"Plug 'im, Pa! Plug 'im!" crowed Junior.

Things moved swiftly from that point. Artie, helping up the blind man, started at the words "Plug 'im!" and dropped the man's cane. Jim, facing the cocked but badly leveled gun, pointed out, "I'm unarmed and there's a crowd of witnesses. You don't want a charge of murder on your head. You don't want to hang." And the blind man, waving his arms frantically, called out, "Where's my cane? Where's my…?"

"It's right here," said Artie. He bent to pick it up just as Senior, hearing the voices behind him, spun about and pulled the trigger.

 _BLAM!_

Jim tackled the crazy sot and wrested the gun from him, then in lieu of the handcuffs which he didn't have in his best evening clothes, Jim belted the guy with an right hook, knocking him out. He slipped the gun into his waistband as he scrambled to his feet and rushed toward his partner.

"Artie?"

Artemus was on his knees by the side of the blind man, shaking his head in shock. "I was trying to retrieve his cane for him when that idiot fired his gun, and over this fellow went. But look at him! Blood everywhere, but I can't find the wound. And his pulse is strong, at least, but he seems to be out cold. I just don't understa…"

"Reach for the sky!" came another voice, followed by the _ka-click_ of a hammer being cocked. Jim and Artie looked over to see that Junior was now pointing a gun of his own at them. "You hurt my pa!" he hollered. "And you're gonna pay!"

The two agents shared an incredulous glance, then Jim stood up, keeping his hands in plain sight, and stepped away from Artie and the fallen blind man. "Look," Jim said to the young fool with the gun, "you and your pa are in enough trouble as it is. You see that man on the ground? Your pa just shot him. That's enough blood that's been shed tonight. Don't add to it."

Sniveling, the young fellow wiped his unencumbered hand across his face. "Shut up! You're going on about how Pa shot _him_ , but you _killed_ Pa! Look at him! He's dead!"

Jim shook his head, still keeping his hands spread as he took a quiet step forward. "No. No, I didn't. He's all right. Knocked out, and probably in for a whopper of a hangover in the morning, but he's not dead."

"Not dead!" the young fellow glanced at his comatose companion, then lifted the gun to point it more directly at Jim. "You're lying! He ain't moving!"

"Of course not!" came Artie's voice. "That's part and parcel of being knocked out. But look at his chest. He's breathing there. Surely you're not so pickled that you can't see his chest rise and fall!"

"Huh?" Again Junior glanced at Senior. And this time, Jim leapt.

It was all over but the shouting in just moments. Again Jim wrested a gun from a drunkard, again he pasted the fellow to keep him from causing any more trouble, again he tucked the confiscated gun into his waistband.

And that's when the shouting began. For with whistles blaring, a squad of policemen now came charging down the street. Brandishing their truncheons, they hollered, "Get away from him!" and hauled Artie to his feet. Over the agent's protests that he had been tending to the wounded blind man, the lead policeman ordered his men to slap manacles onto Artie's wrists, then turned to Jim and demanded, "And you! Drop your weapons, mister! You're under arrest!"


	2. Act One, Part One

**Act One, Part One**

"Well, at least they apologized," said Jim. He and Artie were at long last returning home to the Wanderer. It had been a grueling night having to explain their actions over and over again to the police. Curiously, the two drunks who had started the whole mess had vanished _—_ and when Artie had inquired rather insistently about the well-being of the wounded blind man, it turned out that no one knew what had become of him either.

Artie sighed. "As Pepys would put it, 'and so home,'" he said as Jim unlocked the door. Once they were inside the varnish car of their train, Artie sank wearily onto one of the sofas and loosened his tie. "What a night!"

Jim crossed to the cabinet and upended a couple of glasses. "Care for a little nightcap?" he offered as he lifted a carafe.

"You know it! When do I ever refuse a touch of the spirits?" Artie grinned, beginning to recover his usual mischievous frame of mind, and added, "Though, granted, it's more like a first-thing-in-the-morning-cap, wouldn't you say?"

Jim grinned in return and poured. But as he took up the glasses to join Artie at the sofa, his smile faded. Frowning, he sniffed of the glasses and said, "You might want to skip this one."

Artie hopped up and took a sniff as well, then checked the carafe. "Someone trying to slip us a mickey?" he said.

Jim set down the glasses. "Someone's been here."

"While we were out for an evening's lecture! Uh-huh, uh-huh, see? I thought those tickets were fishy!"

"And look," said Jim. He crossed to the desk and opened the drawers. "The place has been searched." He slapped the drawers shut again.

Artie looked around as well. "Oh, very nice job! Very neat, very tidy. Turned the whole place over, but left everything neat as a pin." He glanced at Jim. "I wonder what they were looking for."

"I wonder if they found it."

"Well, now we know what the tickets were _really_ about! Someone wanted us out of the way so they could go through all our stuff!"

"Yep. And now we're going to go through all our stuff as well to see if anything's missing."

Artie let out a sigh. "So much for getting to hit the sack any time soon!" he complained as he grimly joined Jim in searching the entire train.

…

The late night had made for a late morning, but whoever was knocking on the door of the varnish car obviously didn't know that. Both men emerged from their respective staterooms pulling on dressing gowns and looking as grumpy as bears roused out of hibernation.

Jim reached the door first and pulled it open to find a fresh-faced young messenger boy on the other side. "Good morning, sir!" the young fellow chirped brightly. "I've got a letter here for a…" He glanced at the envelope. "…a Mr James West."

Artie, with a yawn, left off buttoning up his dressing gown. "Oh, good. _You_ get to deal with it. I'm going back to bed." And he wandered back up the corridor to his stateroom, leaving Jim to sign for the letter and pass the boy a tip for waking them up.

Artie was just hanging the dressing gown back up in his closet when Jim walked in and wordlessly passed him the letter. "Huh? Aw, c'mon, Jim! It's your letter! Let me sleep!"

"It's our letter," Jim replied, tapping it with a finger. "Read it."

Reluctantly, Artie did:

 _My dear Messieurs West and Gordon,_

 _How devastated I am that you gentlemen missed my lecture yesterday evening! Allow me to issue then a further invitation: dine with me this evening at six thirty at the lecture hall. I have a reception for you, my friends, that I would not want you to miss!_

 _Cordially, in fond anticipation of an unforgettable repast,  
Elroy McWilliams, PhD _

"Hmph!" said Artie. "If it's anything like last night's reception, I'll pass, thank you very much!"

"You're not going to pass on this one, Artie."

"I'm not?"

"Of course not. How else are we going to find out what's going on?"

"Yeah, well… who's to say we _have_ to find out what's going on, huh? Why can't we just skip this one?"

"Come on, Artie, where's your sense of adventure?"

"Still sleeping in that bed, waiting for the rest of me to join it!"

Jim grinned. "The dinner's not until six thirty this evening. Get a bit more sleep, and we'll do our best when we arrive there to find out who this Prof McWilliams is who made sure we'd be out of the way last night, and also find out what he's looking for, since not only did we not spot that anything was missing, but he must not have found it, since he's making another try for it."

"Wonderful, like the spider sweet-talking the fly to step into the parlor. I tell you, Jim, I pass!"

"You say that now, but come six thirty you'll be too curious to stay behind. I know you too well, Artie." Clapping his partner on the shoulder, Jim added, "Sweet dreams, pal," and left the room.

"Sweet dreams, my eye!" Artie grumbled as he closed the door. "Mysterious invitations left and right, and he expects me to be able to _sleep?"_ Artie crawled back into bed and pulled up the covers. "Why, with all this intrigue going on, I probably…" He yawned hugely. "…probably won't get a wink of sleep _—_ not a second of it! _—_ from worrying about…" Another yawn. "…about who's behind this, who's setting us up, what they want, and… and…"

Half a minute later the first snore issued from Artie's stateroom. Jim chuckled softly, then headed back into the varnish car to get ready for the impending appointment.

…

A few minutes before six thirty that evening found the pair of agents standing before the lecture hall at which they had never arrived the previous evening. This time instead of their best night-on-the-town outfits they were sporting their more usual attire: Jim a bolero suit, Artie his mauve cutaway. As they had the previous evening, the agents had left their sidearms on the train, but if that gave them the appearance of being weaponless _—_ well, appearances can certainly be deceiving.

With a glance at each other, the two mounted the stairs. Jim then pulled the invitation from his pocket as Artie knocked.

The door was opened by a beautiful blonde. "Oh!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up appreciatively. "Mr West and Mr Gordon? Please do enter. Prof McWilliams is awaiting you." She stepped back and gestured them inside.

"What did I say," Jim murmured sotto voce to Artie as the young lovely closed the door behind them, "about our hypothetical magician having a pretty girl for an assistant?"

"I am perfectly content," Artie murmured back, "with the advent of the lovely assistant, James, but let me once again make it abundantly clear that _no_ magician whatsoever is necessary, thank you very much!"

"This way, if you please," said the girl. She led them along a corridor deeper into the building. "That's the lecture hall proper," she added, gesturing to an alcove off to the left, at the far end of which was a closed door. To one side of the alcove was a staircase leading down.

"Oh, what's down there, Miss, ah…?" Artie asked, stepping toward the stairs.

Instantly the girl blocked him. "That's the basement. The kitchens are down there, and it's off-limits to anyone not on the staff. This way, please." As she started down the corridor once more, leaving both the lecture hall proper and the stairway behind, she glanced over her shoulder to say, "And my apologies; I should have introduced myself. I am Miss…"

She gave them a name, indeed she did. But from the puzzled look each man threw to the other, plainly neither was sure he had caught what she'd said. "Miss, ah, Peznam?" Artie ventured.

She smiled. "It's an odd name, I know. You may simply call me Pearl if you wish. Uncle Elroy does."

"Ah, then you're the professor's niece," said Jim.

"Oh, more or less. I'm his ward, you see. Now, to your right is our library and… Oh, watch your step!"

The distant chime of a bell had sounded from somewhere underfoot, and the girl drew back from the left-hand side of the hallway. Only a moment later, two large panels of the floor, each a good yard square, began to open as an inverted U-shaped metal bar pushed them upwards. Under the U was a wheeled table laden with myriad covered dishes on a white linen tablecloth.

The next moment a man in livery sporting the world's largest mustache came rushing up the basement stairs to take charge of the table. He ducked his head, turning his face toward the floor as he pushed the table along, following the girl.

Artie lagged back for a second. With a nod toward the waiter, he murmured, "Look familiar, Jim?"

"Vaguely. And he plainly doesn't want his face to be seen."

"I'm not surprised. You had your hands busy with those two drunks last night, but in the meantime I got a very good look at the wounded blind man. And that fellow, Jim _—_ minus the ridiculous cookie-duster on his upper lip, of course _—_ looks enough like our friend the blind man to be the fellow's twin brother!"

"Mm," said Jim. "Unless…"

"Mm-hmm," Artie whispered as the girl turned a frown their way and gestured imperiously for them to hurry. "My thoughts exactly: unless indeed!"

The girl, along with the waiter, had reached a door on the right farther down the corridor. She held the door open as the waiter pushed the table through and continued to hold it as she waited for the guests to catch up. "Do hurry," she implored. "Uncle is waiting!"

But even then two things impeded Jim and Artie from entering the room. One was the sight of a strange machine in the alcove just opposite the door, a curious device that seemed to be a cross between a printing press and a guillotine.

And the second _—_ that was the sound of the voice that drifted through the open door to fall upon the agents' ears. A rich voice, deep, cultured, plummy. To the waiter this voice declaimed, "How is it, my good man, that after attending on me for lo, these many weeks, you cannot retain it within your brainpan that I require for my pleasurable repose at the dining table not one but _two_ chairs, armless, set side by side? For as it would be plain to you, sir, if you would but use your eyes, an armed chair will not do, not for a moment, oh no. Or, to put it in the vernacular, my good fellow," and here the voice _—_ that oh so familiar voice! _—_ swooped down from the exalted tones of urbane sophistication into a junkyard growl of, _"you're not puttin' me in one o' those!"_

Out in the hall, Artie gave a hiccup of a laugh and muttered out of the side of his mouth, "What did I say, Jim, about preferring there not be a magician?"


	3. Act One, Part Two

**Act One, Part Two**

As Jim and Artie stood in the doorway gazing into the dining room with the pretty blonde still holding the door for them, they had as yet only a rear view of their host. But oh, how familiar he was! The height of the man and his breadth of beam, his mellifluous elocution and commanding presence! No, there was no mistaking into whose lair they just had walked. Twice before they had met him, that prestidigitator _par excellence_ , the one and only…

"Count…" murmured Artie.

"…Manzeppi," Jim finished.

But then the girl called out, "Uncle Elroy, your guests are here!" and the immense man swung around from berating the waiter to smile myopically at the two agents.

"Ah, gentlemen! How good at last to meet you, my dear friends! Prof Elroy McWilliams, at your service!" He advanced toward them, a rhapsodic smile wreathing his face.

Well, he certainly looked like the good count, albeit camouflaged somewhat by the pince-nez glasses obscuring his pale blue eyes. His beard was trimmed into a thinner line along his jaw than they remembered, with more gray interspersed among the brown at his chin and backswept forelock and temples. But no, this had to be Manzeppi. There was no possible doubt of it.

Or was there?

With both his hands the professor engulfed one of Jim's in an enthusiastic handshake, then did the same to Artie's. "Welcome!" the great man said effusively. "Welcome indeed! Will you be seated? We shall dine forthwith." He turned then to the girl and offered his arm. "Ah, my Iridescent Pearl of great price!" he said dotingly and led her to her seat.

"Something wrong, Artie?" Jim asked quietly, for Artie was frowning down at his hand and wiggling his fingers.

"Hmm? Oh no. Just, ah, just making sure I still have all five of them." And the two agents followed their host to the table.

Prof McWilliams helped the girl with her chair, then swept to his own _—_ that is to say, to the pair of chairs the waiter was just now setting side by side at the head of the table in the nick of time for the great man to regally settle upon them his considerable bulk. Jim took the seat opposite their host, Artie the one across from the girl. With a clap of his hands, the professor said to the waiter, "Melville, you may serve now."

The man nodded and began presenting the dishes one by one. And if James West watched each bowl and platter carefully for several seconds _after_ it was placed on the table, well, who could blame him for his caution, considering the memorable dish of hand-holding-gun that he had once seen grace Count Manzeppi's table?

But no such occurrence came to past now. Only sumptuous food, hearty and pleasing to both eye and palate, was in evidence today.

The professor indulged himself in the evening's feast with epicurean delight, and the girl at his side also enjoyed the meal with no evidence of avoiding any of the dishes. Jim and Artie, mindful of the carafe on the train, were a bit more circumspect, but if any of the food had been adulterated, they felt no ill effects. At length, with the dessert of _crème brûlée à l'orange et au safran_ a happy memory and _digestifs_ being poured by the man behind the mustache, Prof McWilliams leaned back in his chairs, dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, and smiled upon his guests.

"Gentlemen! I trust you have relished our ambrosial repast?"

"Well, the _foie gras_ was a bit past its prime," Artie said blandly.

Both agents caught the swiftly-suppressed flare of umbrage in the professor's pale eyes behind his pince-nez. The man closed his eyes for nearly a full second, mastering himself, then opened them to smile genially upon his guests once more. "Now," he said, "to business. I was quite aghast, gentlemen, to realize that the pair of you were not present for my lecture last night. I do hope nothing untoward hindered you from attending?"

"No," said Jim. "We just didn't have any interest in the subject matter."

"And how!" Artie added, following Jim's lead. "Mediaeval superstitions? How boring!"

"Not to mention, such a topic can hardly have any practical applications here in the West in modern times," Jim continued.

Artie chuckled. "Ain't that the truth!"

Ah, and once again fury flared in the eyes of their genial host. "No practical applications, you say? Boring? Of no interest? On the contrary, good sirs! There is much that may be gleaned from the venerable beliefs of men of old, men of renown, men of learning in the early days of the sciences! Men such as Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Paracelsus, Nicolas Flamel…"

"Mm, not to mention Dr Faustus," Artie offered facetiously.

 _Wham!_ Prof McWilliams slammed his palm down upon the table. "Do refrain from mockery, sir! Alchemy, that arcane pursuit to which the aforementioned scholars of old dedicated their lives and inestimable intellects, may have fallen in these latter days into disrepute, but it is a _fact_ , gentlemen, an inarguable _fact…_ that they knew things, discovered things, for which our own modern-day science cannot account."

Jim sat back in his chair and tipped his head to one side. "All right, I'll bite. Discoveries such as what?"

"Wonders, my good sirs! Miracles! We imagine ourselves vastly superior in this day of scientific inquiry to those of old living in such a time of rank superstition, but we are their sons, their grandsons, building upon the foundations they laid, using the apparatus they invented, perpetuating the very names they coined. _Aqua vitae_ : water of life, otherwise known as alcohol. Oil of vitriol: one of the most corrosive of acids, as well as one of the most useful. _Sal petrae_ : salt of rock or saltpeter, an important ingredient in that most homely of concoctions: to wit, gunpowder. Elixir, from the Arabic _al-iksir_ : the most eagerly pursued of all substances, gentlemen, the exemplar, the goal of all goals, the _—_ as it were _—_ Holy Grail of the alchemical arts, none other than that substance without peer, rarest beyond all rarity, exquisite, unique, sublime…"

He paused and peered at his guests over the tops of his glasses as if expecting the men to finish his statement for him. But the pair only stared back blankly, waiting.

"Oh, come, gentlemen! Surely you know that of which I speak! Surely I have no need to spell out to you that most miraculous of all compounds, so fervently sought after by our alchemistic forebears!"

Still the agents gazed at him. He might as well have been speaking Swahili for the absence of comprehension registering on their faces.

"Gentlemen!" cried the professor in a passion. "Do not pretend to me that you fail to recognize that I am speaking to you of the famous, the fabulous, the faultless Philosopher's Stone!"

Now the two men turned to frown at each other for a moment, then glanced back at their host.

"The what?" said Artie.

"Never heard of it," dead-panned Jim.

" _Grr…!"_ McWilliams' teeth gnashed together. "Never heard of…! Lies! Impossible! Why, the most boorish dunce in the backwaters of Outer Mongolia has heard of the Philosopher's Stone! _He_ has heard of the Philosopher's Stone!" he cried, raising an indignant finger to stab it in the direction of their mustachioed waiter.

"Hey!" Melville yelped. But McWilliams overbore the man's protests, haranguing on:

"The Philosopher's Stone, gentlemen! The paragon of all Creation! Giver of life, transmuter of base metals into gold, the prize above all prizes for which our forebears strove and pined and died! The beating heart, as one might say, at which Science and Magic meet and are one and are at peace _—_ though none else are," he added, his eyes blazing as his voice dropped into the sepulchral range. "No, because the _al-iksir_ exists, none may be at peace! Wars must be waged to obtain that treasure, still more wars fought to retain it!"

"My, hardly sounds worth all that trouble!" put in Artie.

McWilliams whirled on him in a fury. "Again you mock, Mr Gordon! Perhaps for a man such as yourself, lacking in imagination, in ambition _—_ yes, content to scratch out a meager living at the beck and call of a petty _government agency —_ for such as you, perhaps the siren call of the Philosopher's Stone falls on deaf ears!"

"But not for you," said Jim.

"Exactly! Not for me!" The professor leaned back upon his chairs and drew a deep breath. "For a man such as myself _—_ and let me assure you, gentlemen, few are the men such as myself, men with the ears to hear and the eyes to see, men to think and dream and strive and prevail! _—_ for such as myself, no price is too high to pay, no task too onerous, no distance too far, no sin too black to be contemplated (nor consummated), in order to obtain that for which the ancients yearned." He lifted his eyes as if gazing into the misty past. "Deserts to cross, mountains to traverse, ancient writings to unearth and translate and obey, ancient gods to appease, ancient oaths upon which to pledge one's soul, ancient sacrifices to revive and execute, ancient…"

"Sacrifices," Jim broke in. "Well, I'm not surprised at that one. I knew there had to be an ocean of blood in this novella somewhere."

McWilliams glared at him, a muscle in his forehead twitching. "Indeed there was such an ocean, Mr West. Pray your own blood may not be added to it!"

" _Our_ blood?" echoed Artie. "Don't you think you're carrying this little fantasy of yours a bit too far, Prof McWilliams? You speak at length _—_ and rapturously, I might add _—_ about something that is at the most a myth and at the very least a fairy tale. Don't you suppose it's about time for you to come back down to earth?"

"Instead of floating off into the atmosphere carried along by a balloon fueled with your own hot air?" Jim stated, his eyes fixed on their host.

Again that muscle leapt to life on the professor's forehead, this time pulsing, throbbing! Shoving his chairs back, McWilliams sprang to his feet, glaring down at his guests. "Enough!" he thundered. "I shall bear with your persiflage no more! I had invited you here on the assumption that you were civilized men, men of culture and learning, only to find that you are boors, the both of you, and of the most vulgar class at that! Be gone! And see you never darken my doorstep again!"

The girl gasped. "Uncle Elroy!"

"No, no, my Pearl, I grieve that your innocent, childlike ears should have heard such indecorous jesting at your poor uncle's expense. I most humbly beg your pardon, my dear, for inviting these two into the bosom of our fami… What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?" McWilliams rounded abruptly on the agents who had not yet budged from the table. "Get out, both of you! _Now!"_ their host roared.

"All right, fine!" said Artie, vacating his seat without so much as folding his napkin. "I think we know when we aren't wanted."

Jim too rose to his feet, then turned a smile towards the young woman. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss… ah…" The last name she had given them had long since escaped him. With a winsome smile, he finished with, "Miss Pearl."

"Get out, get out, get out!" McWilliams ordered, imposing his bulk between West and the girl.

With a wink, Jim took his leave of the young lovely, then he and Artie strode back down the long hall to let themselves out. As they paused outside on the doorstep to don their hats, Artie murmured, "Well, James, what do you suppose that was all about?"

"Either he's what he presents himself to be, an authority on the Middle Ages…"

"Yes, and a very specific aspect of the Middle Ages!"

"Or else he's who he obviously is: Count Manzeppi." Jim descended the steps rapidly and flagged down a carriage. "Once we're back at the Wanderer, we'll need to send off some telegrams to Washington to find out just who our esteemed host was."

…

"Uncle Elroy?"

"A moment, my dear." Turning from the startled girl, the professor clicked his fingers at their waiter. "Melville. You and your brothers are to follow our guests at once, do you hear me? Unlike last night, you are not to confront them, nor are you to let yourselves be seen. Off with you!" And as the waiter gave a nod and sped from the room, McWilliams turned his attention again to the young lady. Taking both her hands between his, he with one hand patted them while the thumb of his other hand traced a lazy figure eight on her skin.

"What do you think of them, my dear?" he asked.

"They were very rude to you, Uncle."

"Now, now, but that is their way! They were playing a game with me, you see: pretending not to understand that of which I was speaking. But then they slipped in a handful of key phrases: the ocean of blood, for example, and the hot-air balloon. Little references to our last encounter, you see. Oh yes, they are quite aware of who I am, and are now no doubt wondering what my aim is in calling their attention to myself."

"Obviously it has to do with the Philosopher's Stone, Uncle. As much as you spoke of it, surely they understood that!"

"I'm counting on it, my precious girl! But what they do not know, what indeed they _cannot_ know, is what _I_ know about that priceless treasure. And that _—_ look you, my dear! _—_ is what will drive their steps in the way in which I wish them to go." He smiled and released her hands. "But more of that anon. Shall we go down now and confer with our other guest?" Offering to her the crook of his elbow, which she amiably accepted, the professor squired her from the room and downstairs to the basement.


	4. Act One, Part Three

**Act One, Part Three**

The clatter of the telegraph grabbed the agents' attention, and Artie hurried to send the go-ahead signal. Both men listened attentively as the chattering of Morse code filled the air of the varnish car. Then they exchanged a glance.

"Well," said Artie as he tapped out the acknowledgement, then shut the key up within its set of fake books, "what do you think of that?"

"So Elroy McWilliams, PhD, is a legitimate professor from Yale University specializing in studies of the Middle Ages, currently on a lecture tour of the Western states and territories."

"Yeah, and the girl is his ward, a Miss…" Artie consulted the sheet of paper upon which he had written down the information Washington had sent them. "Miss, of all things, Iridescent Pearl Peznam. Y'know, when he called her Iridescent Pearl, I thought he was indulging himself in a little hyperbole, embroidering on the simple name of Pearl. I never dreamed Iridescent was her actual first name!"

"And Peznam is her actual last name," mused Jim. "Never heard of a name like that before."

"Me neither. It doesn't sound like any language I know," offered Artie.

"Which is saying something, considering how many languages you do know," Jim replied. "So. We've got this character who looks like Manzeppi, sounds like Manzeppi…"

"Pontificates like Manzeppi," put in Artie.

Jim nodded. "And yet he really seems to be some professor from back East."

"Who just happens to lecture us at considerable length on the topic of one of Manzeppi's pet projects."

"The Philosopher's Stone. Right."

"Which, as you and I both know, James, a certain ventriloquistic acquaintance of the good count's by the name of Villar told us has been lying at the bottom of San Francisco Bay for the past couple of months now, making friends with the fishes."

"So what is Manzeppi up to? Why show up and make himself conspicuous like this?"

"Yeah, yammering on about the _al-iksir_ , taking overblown offense at our reminders of the last time we met him…"

"And that's still presuming he really is Count Carlos Maria Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi and not merely this Elroy McWilliams!" Jim stood for a moment, arms akimbo, frowning at thin air.

"Y'know," said Artie, "if he _is_ Manzeppi, one of his favorite little tricks is to suddenly pop in through the swinging door over there, settle himself down on one of our pretty gold sofas, and hint all too broadly that he wants this train for himself!"

At that statement, both men turned to look at the swinging door, fully expecting Manzeppi to do exactly that.

Nothing happened.

"O… k…" said Artie at last. "So, James, what do we do now?"

"We wait for nightfall, then we go back to that lecture hall and do some exploring. In particular, there's the basement that Miss Pearl made sure to tell us was strictly off-limits."

"Oh, I see!" said Artie. "So we're going to go darken his doorstep again, committing the very act which he expressly forbade us ever to do. Is that it?"

"Well of course! By saying that he _gave_ us the engraved invitation he specifically mentioned to us as he was throwing us out!"

"He did?" Artie ruminated on the matter for a second, then admitted, "Ah. Well, it's a good thing you caught on to that, Jim. Apparently I missed that part."

"You haven't been around the good count quite as much as I have."

"Well, that's true; you always were the lucky one, James." Artie ruminated a bit more, then added, "You know, there is one thing we've always found to be true about Manzeppi and that nefarious gang of his, the Eccentrics: the distaff member has ever been the weakest link."

Jim nodded. "Yes. First there was Miranda…"

"Who presented herself to you as a potential ally, only to turn out to be Manzeppi's shill…"

"…until I put forth the possibility of our government paying twice as much — _two_ million dollars — if the Eccentrics would renege on their assassination deal and instead keep Pres Juarez alive."

Artie grinned. "Ah, and how Miss Miranda's eyes lit up, with little dollar signs dancing in her pupils!"

"And then our second go-round with the count," added Jim. "This time his pulchritudinous assistant had already absconded with the prize."

"Right. The lovely Miss Gerda Sharff, having made off with the little toy chicken with the Philosopher's Stone inside, only to drop the thing in the stairwell while fleeing from Manzeppi! That time we didn't have to turn the young lady's head; the Philosopher's Stone had already done that part for us."

"And now we come to Iridescent Pearl Peznam." Jim frowned. "I still don't understand that part. Manzeppi calls her his ward…"

"A claim she seems to agree with," put in Artie.

"And while that may all be an act on their part…" Jim paused and shook his head, still frowning. "I don't know, Artie. Anything Manzeppi says of course should be taken with a grain of salt."

"Only a grain? I'd plump for the whole shaker full!" Artie exclaimed.

That brought a small smile to Jim's face. "True. But the girl. She seems rather authentic to me."

"Could be a very good actress," Artie said with a shrug.

"That's true too. At any rate, I think the girl is a worthwhile angle for playing divide and conquer. I'll take that task."

Artie snorted. "Oh, a task, is it? Well, I'm not surprised you've assigned yourself such an onerous undertaking. Leaving me to explore the basement? You're too good to me!"

"Of course I am!" Jim grinned. "All right, let's get ready."

…

A fat waxing gibbous moon found the agents approaching the lecture hall again, this time from around the back. Both men produced lock picks, followed by Artie's voice softly chanting, "One, two, three… Why do I always pick paper? Ok, Jim, your treat."

Jim took care of the backdoor, then they quietly entered. It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness inside the hall, a few more for them to work out the floor plan from this, the opposite direction. Then Jim pointed. "That way," he whispered.

They moved forward. Shortly they reached the main corridor the girl had led them along earlier. As they passed the entrance to the dining room, Artie jerked a thumb in the direction of the odd contraption with the big blade and gave a shudder.

Here they split up. Artie, dressed in ragged clothes and with the skillfully applied illusion of a three-day growth of beard, gave Jim a little wave before heading on past the section of floor they had seen open earlier to deliver the laden table. The floor was now closed tightly, and Artie made sure to avoid stepping on it, for not only might it prove to be a trapdoor, but a footfall upon it might well be fatally loud. Moments later, having safely skirted that contrivance, he arrived at the stairway the girl had forbade them to enter — and entered it.

For his part, Jim had noticed a doorway just beyond the bladed contraption in the corridor on the opposite side from the dining room and was heading that way when he heard a sound somewhere off in the direction into which his partner had disappeared. Swiftly and silently he rushed for the stairs and looked down them. "Artie?" he whispered.

Artie had paused partway down the stairs. "Oh, you heard it too? Seemed to come from the lecture hall itself."

Jim nodded. "I'll check it out then. You go on down to the basement."

"Fine, Jim, fine." Both men moved off in their respective directions.

Jim slipped quietly through the alcove which led to the lecture hall proper, cracked open the door, listened for a moment, then passed within. The hall beyond was large and dimly lit. Benches marched off into the shadows before Jim; the speaker's dais was to his right. Keeping a sharp eye out, he edged forward along the wall, glancing down the lines of benches as he passed each one. Nothing so far.

As he moved farther into the hall, he got a better view of the back wall. Here there was a set of double doors, closed, and above them a balcony with a large ornate wall clock hanging centered over the doors. Still keeping a careful eye out for any movement, Jim approached the doors, then glanced back at the dais. Satisfied that there was no one behind him, Jim turned back to the doors.

Which were no longer closed. Standing in the wide doorway were three shadowy figures, all of them with guns at the ready, and one of them sporting the world's largest mustache.


	5. Act One, Part Four

**Act One, Part Four**

Artie crept down the stairs, which made a sharp turn to the left near the bottom. Cautiously he peeped around the corner to see a poorly lit corridor stretching away before him, doors at intervals along either side. The corridor, he surmised, ran the length of the lecture hall above. One of these doors, as the girl had indicated, led to the kitchen. But what of the others? He descended the final three steps, then tried the first door on the right.

…

"Good evening, Mr West," said Melville the mustache. "I think there must be something wrong with your hearing, though. Didn't the professor tell you plain as day not to darken his doorstep again?"

"Yes," Jim replied. "But as you said, that was _day_. Now that it's nighttime I can't possibly make his doorstep any darker with my shadow, now can I?"

"Oh, you're just hilarious, Mr West," said Melville coldly. "Isn't he hilarious, Elmer?"

The figure on his right shrugged, the gun in his hand pointing a great deal more steadily at Jim now than it had the night before.

"Oh, you don't think so?" said Melville. "Well, then what about you, Elmer? What do you think?"

The figure on his left indicated his opinion by stretching forth his gun hand and drawing back the hammer.

Without waiting for Elmer-on-the-left to complete his reply, Jim struck, grabbing the extended wrist and yanking the man forward. The gun went off harmlessly, pointing beyond Jim and towards the floor. Jim belted his opponent across the jaw, then added a knee to the midriff. Elmer quietly folded up at that point, the wind knocked out of him.

Other Elmer now waded in. With a grunt he too cocked his gun _—_ and he too found himself in sudden close combat with James West. Jim's arm came up and crashed into the second Elmer's wrist, sending his gun spinning. As Jim now caught him by the shirt collar and slugged him across the chops, a shot rang out.

Jim instantly flung Elmer the second at Melville, sending them both tumbling. "Get off me, Elmer!" yelled the man with the mustache. "How'm I supposed to aim, huh?"

Jim triggered his sleeve device and his handy derringer sprang into his palm. "You don't have to aim, Melville," he said clearly. "I already am."

The pair looked up, straight into the barrel of the derringer. Then Melville surrendered his gun.

…

The first room to the right proved to be, in fact, the kitchen. Artie glanced over the room quickly, noting especially the machinery in the far right-hand corner composed of a set of chains and pulleys attached to a sturdy platform that sported a heavy-duty bar in the shape of a large inverted U. "So they cook the food in the main part of the room and load the table up right there, then send it aloft. That's efficient, I suppose," Artie told himself.

He left that room and was just starting to open the next door along the hallway when there came the sound of gunfire from somewhere above his head. With an exclamation of "Jim!" Artie abandoned his search and charged for the far end of the hall.

Only to pull up again and whirl back. Was that…? Yes! He'd heard a voice! Off to… ah, to the left, same side as the kitchen. A voice was crying out in panic: "I'm hit! Oh, Lord have mercy, I'm _hit!_ Somebody help me! Somebody, _please!"_

…

Jim finished tying the last knot and stepped back to admire his handiwork: three fresh minions dangling from the railing of the balcony like so many sides of beef. He collected up their three guns, crossed to a window and tossed them out, then locked the window again. It was as he returned to the double doors to pass on through that he noticed the wall clock at last: its glass cover had been shattered and there was a nice big hole in its face.

He frowned momentarily, wondering how that had happened. Melville would have had no reason to shoot the clock; it was behind him!

Ah, but come to think of it, Elmer the second might well have shot it, though not intentionally. No doubt as his cocked gun hit the floor it had gone off, perforating the clock.

"Poor clock," murmured Jim. He went on through the doors. There was a stairway to one side leading up to the balcony; Jim had already gone up that way while trussing up the minions. Now he set out to explore the rest of that stairway, which led downwards into the gloom.

Three seconds after Jim descended the stairs a massive figure arose from behind the lectern on the dais and looked out over the lecture hall, then began to chuckle merrily.

…

"Seriously, you can stop panicking now! I've got you. I'm right here staunching the bleeding. Yes, I know it's a leg wound and those can be very bad. But I'm telling you, the femoral artery doesn't go anywhere near where you got hit. You can trust me on this!"

Jim, having found himself in the basement, followed the sound of his partner's voice and looked in at the third door to the left. Within he saw a disturbingly familiar sight: dangling from the ceiling was a strongly-built birdcage made of thick iron bars, a cage easily large enough to hold a grown man. The door of this overgrown aviary had been thrown open, and Artie was leaning into the cage, bending over the body of a whimpering man lying on the cage floor batting Artie's hands away from his bloodied left leg.

"Need any help, Artie?"

"Oh, hi, Jim. Not with the first aid, no. He needs that bullet taken out of his leg, but we'd better get him to safety first, and for that part I will need help." Artie was attempting, despite his patient's interference, to wind a strip of cloth ripped from the tail of his bum-disguise shirt around the wounded man's leg, binding a folded-up handkerchief securely into place over the injury to try to stop the bleeding. "I figure…" Artie added, tying off the bandage, "that we can use that glorified dumbwaiter in the kitchen to take him upstairs, then easily carry him out of the building from there."

"Sounds good. But what happened to him? How'd he get hurt?"

"It was right after the first gunshot that he started hollering. Says the bullet came through the ceiling and caught him right here in the calf." Artie pointed.

"Through the ceiling, huh? That would have been First Elmer's shot." And so much for that gun going off harmlessly! "But who is he? Someone Manzeppi is keeping as a prisoner?"

"Oh, he's Manzeppi's prisoner, all right! Oh hey, he's passed out. Well, we can still pick him up and take him with us. I'm surprised though, Jim, that you have to ask who he is. Don't you recognize him?"

"Light's bad," Jim explained and stepped into the room for a better look. And at the sight of the dark-skinned man with a brushy mustache, he gave a low whistle. "You're right. Only Manzeppi would want to keep this man as a prisoner."

"Yeah, and I think we now know why our train was searched, don't you?"

"Exactly. This is all beginning to make sense now. Let's get him out of here. He's got a lot of questions to answer."

"He sure does." Between the two of them, Jim and Artie hauled Villar the unconscious ventriloquist to his feet and carried him off to the kitchen.

 **End of Act One**


	6. Act Two, Part One

**Act Two, Part One**

"So the reason a shot came through the floor _—_ or ceiling, depending on your point of view _—_ is because you interfered with the aim of one of the minions, and that's how Villar here got hit?" Artie gave a whistle as he and Jim finished laying the wounded man out on the platform of the kitchen's elevator. "Let me just suggest you keep that little fact to yourself once our friend here wakes up!"

"Fine with me. How do we get this thing to move?"

Artie glanced around the room, one forefinger thumping at his nose. "Gotta be some controls somewhere. Be nice if every device we run across in a villain's lair had a big ol' label on it, wouldn't it, Jim?"

"Sounds a bit batty to me," Jim opined. He knelt at Villar's side, checking his bandage. "We'd better get him out of here quickly; he's still bleeding."

"Right, right. Let me see…" Artie wandered around the kitchen, opening one cabinet after another. "Ah, here we go! This should do it." He took hold of an immense knife switch in the shape of a squared-off capital Y and shoved it down into its connectors. Instantly there came the clear chime of a bell as an electrical hum filled the air. "All right, Jim, that should… Hey, wait for me!"

For the platform was already two feet off the floor and rising rapidly. "I don't think there's a pause button, Artie. Looks like you'll just have to catch up with us."

"Oh, great!" Artie muttered, and hurried out the door and up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Jim made sure no parts of him or the other passenger were hanging off any of the edges as the platform continued to rise, the inverted U bar shoving the floor panels above them up and out. And as they emerged into the upstairs hallway…

Ah. Three pairs of legs came into view. Three faces whom Jim had last seen gagged and suspended in midair from the balcony were now scowling down at him. "There you are, West!" growled the man with the mustache. "We got a bone to pick with you!"

All three of them _—_ Melville, Elmer, and Elmer _—_ were now loose and spoiling for a fight. The good news was that none of them had managed to retrieve their guns.

The bad news was that Villar chose that moment to wake up. He took one look at the three minions glaring down at them and gave a shriek.

Then he tumbled right off the platform, falling all the way back down to the kitchen floor below. _Thud._

…

Artie was halfway up the stairs when he heard the shriek followed by the thud. After a moment of hesitation, he first ascended the stairs the rest of the way to peek around the corner _—_ ok, there was Jim tossing a handful of minions around, no big deal _—_ then turned and rushed back downstairs, wondering what he would find in the kitchen.

Well, there was Villar, flat on the floor and gibbering in panic. "They're after me, they're after me, Mr Gordon! They're gonna kill me!" he wailed.

"Artemus," said Artie as he dropped to one knee at the man's side and checked him for broken bones.

"Huh?" responded the wounded man, peering up at him in befuddlement.

"My name. It's Artemus. You don't have to call me Mr Gordon. And you know what?" he added as he continued gently moving one of Villar's limbs after another, "you are one lucky fellow! You managed to fall off the elevator all the way down here without hitting any of the pulleys or chains, and on top of that…" He finished his inventory. "Yep, nothing broken either. So I'll just tighten this…" and he repositioned the handkerchief, then retied the bandage. "All right, let's go."

"Go?" Villar babbled. "Go _where?_ Where can we possibly go that Manzeppi won't find me and kill me?"

"For one thing," Artie grunted as he lifted the injured man, "if he really wanted to kill you, he'd have done so already. The fact that you're still alive shows he has some use for you."

"Yeah _—_ as bait! And here you are, come to take the bait, and… Wait. Wasn't that Mr West upstairs just now?"

"Sure was. Jim's a bit busy for the moment though. In the meantime, I would suggest you hush and let's get out of here!" Putting himself on the same side of Villar as the wounded leg, Artie hauled Manzeppi's erstwhile ventriloquist out of the kitchen and down the length of the corridor to the other stairs _—_ and, he hoped, to freedom.

…

James West, all three minions hanging onto him, crashed through a door midway down the corridor and landed in the library _—_ or at least, in the room Miss Pearl had earlier identified as the library. The main impression Jim had of the room as he rolled and used a foot to the midsection to send one of the Elmers flying into a wall was that those walls were very close by. It was a small room, sparsely supplied with floor-to-ceiling bookcases along with a central desk and chair.

The other Elmer promptly got to make the acquaintance of the desk. Grimly determined, Jim tried to throw off the third minion, but Melville had managed to lock his fingers around Jim's throat and was squeezing hard. Grappling with one hand against Melville's grip, Jim slammed his other fist into the man's face, pounding his jaw again and again.

But Melville clung on. His ridiculous fake mustache gave up and flew from his face, but Melville only pressed harder, intent on strangling Mr West.

At that point Jim switched tactics. With the room around him beginning to dissolve into spangles, Jim caught Melville by the back of the head and rammed the man's forehead against the handiest stationary object Jim could think of: his own hard head.

It worked. Melville's hands came loose, and in the split second before he could regain his focus and renew his attack, Jim rolled out of easy reach, grabbed something that had fallen from the desk, and clobbered Melville with it.

That did it. The final minion collapsed like the first two, and the fight was over.

Massaging his sore neck, Jim came slowly to his feet, then looked at the item in his hand, wondering what he had drafted into service as a weapon. It was large and wooden with a handle sticking out the back and a piece of rubber attached to its front surface. Across the piece of rubber were raised letters, all of them reversed as if in a mirror. It took him a second to work out the words:

EX LIBRIS  
ELROY MCWILLIAMS, PhD

Ah. It was, in fact, a rubber stamp. "Well," Jim rasped approvingly, "considering that ol' Melville was trying to stamp me out…"

From the doorway came a feminine shriek. "Merciful heavens! What's been going on in here? And _eek!_ What is that horrible thing there: some giant hairy spider?"

Aha! So at last Jim had found the object of his part of tonight's quest, the lovely Pearl Peznam herself. He pasted on a dazzling smile as he turned to face the delectable source of the screams, then followed her pointing finger to see what had frightened her by lying on the floor looking gigantic and hairy, and… Uh-huh, just as he thought.

"Everything's perfectly all right, Miss Pearl," he said. "We were just doing a little, ah, redecorating. I guess we must have scared a spider out of hiding in the process. But I'll take care of it for you." And so saying, he crossed the room and, with a stomp of his foot, he rescued the charming damsel from the fuzzy horror that had formerly been glued to Melville's upper lip.

…

"No hospitals! _No_ hospitals, Mr Gordon! Are you nuts? You take me to a hospital, and Manzeppi'll find me for sure!"

"All right, all right! But at least let me get you to a doctor to remove that…"

"No! No doctors either! I can't take the chance!"

"You can't take the chance of leaving that bullet in your leg either, Villar!" Artie growled. "And I already told you, it's Artemus; you don't have to call me Mr Gordon! Now," he added, doing his best to stay reasonable, "surely you understand that I've got to take you _somewhere!"_

"Ok, ok." Villar grimaced, then shuddered. "Can't… can't _you_ take the bullet out for me?"

"All right, fine. We'll go back to the train and…"

"No, not the train! Manzeppi loves that train of yours; if there's one place he'll show up at for sure, it's your train!"

" _Fine!_ Then where else to you suggest I take you to do minor surgery on your leg, hmm?"

"I… I dunno. Can't you think of something?"

"I already did: hospitals, doctor's offices, and the Wanderer! You don't like any of those, then _you_ come up with somewhere you don't think Manzeppi will find you."

"Well…" Villar paused, then nodded. "Ok, I know where we can go. But it's not anywhere close by, and I don't think I can walk that far. We'll need a cab."

"A cab," said Artie. "When I was already dressed as a bum, and then sacrificed the tail of my shirt to bind up your leg. And for that matter, what with that piece of shirt tied around your leg and the fact that I just plucked you out of a giant birdcage where you've been languishing for who knows how long, you aren't particularly presentable either. You really think any cabbies are gonna stop for the likes of us?"

In a very small voice, Villar said, "We can hope, can't we?"

…

"Oh, Mr West, Uncle Elroy will be so angry!" Having brought Jim down the hall into the dining room, Pearl had fetched a basin of water and some towels, and was now anxiously ministering to the handsome intruder, periodically casting worried looks over her shoulder at the door.

She was tenderly washing Jim's wounds, but he did not fail to notice that the girl had left Melville, Elmer, and Elmer _—_ men she presumably knew much better _—_ lying scattered about the floor of the devastated library. He filed that interesting fact away and smiled at his angel of mercy. "Your uncle is very fond of his library, I take it?"

"I don't mean that! He gave you strict orders never to return here. He'll be furious that you came back despite his warning; he loathes being disobeyed, you see." She dabbed at Jim's cheek with a damp cloth.

He laid his hand over hers. "What does he do when he's disobeyed, Miss Pearl?"

She blushed fetchingly and dropped her eyes as she slipped her hand out from under his. "He… oh, he's extremely clever. He comes up with the most… well, really diabolical punishments. But he doesn't mete them out right away either. He gives his victim time to, uh, to assume he didn't notice, you see. And then, out of nowhere, he springs the trap!"

Jim's own eyes flicked to the door at that point, recognizing an entrance line such as Count Manzeppi might not be able to resist. But, as on the train when he and Artie had watched the swinging door, this door too did not fly open. Returning his attention to Pearl, Jim asked, "Is that what he did to the man in the basement? Suddenly spring a trap on him?"

She gasped, eyes widening. "Oh, you mustn't have gone down there! That's off-limits! I told you so!"

Jim smiled winsomely. "I have a very bad habit: any time someone tells me I mustn't do a thing, I usually make it my business to do that thing anyway, and at the earliest possible opportunity to boot."

Her lip quivered. "Yes, I'm beginning to see that. Oh, Mr West, now all the more I hope that Uncle Elroy doesn't learn what you've been up to here tonight!"

As if the possibility existed that somehow her uncle would fail to notice the evidence of the agents' activity there in the building that night! The destruction of the library door all on its own would be a dead giveaway _—_ not to mention the absence of the prisoner from the basement. Still, if Miss Pearl was treasuring the notion that Uncle Elroy could be kept in the dark…

Jim took one of her hands and squeezed it. "You won't tell on me, will you, Miss Pearl?" he said, giving her his best wide-eyed innocent schoolboy expression.

Again she dropped her eyes, this time biting at her lower lip. "I… I'll have to. He's my uncle; I mustn't disobey him. I can't hide from him what you've done, nor the fact that I know you've been here."

Jim took the damp cloth from her hands, set it down in the basin of water, then drew her into his arms and kissed her. Instantly she resisted, pushing against his chest, trying to draw back.

But that was only for the first split second. At that point she apparently changed her mind, for she then pressed in closer, enjoying the kiss.

Gently Jim released her. "I really need your help, Pearl."

"A-against Uncle? But I, I…"

He kissed her again.

"Oh, Mr West!" she sighed.

"It's Jim."

"Oh… Jim…" She hovered close, eyes half-closed, obviously hoping for yet another kiss. And Jim did not disappoint her.

…

Out in the corridor, a rumbling chuckle rolled _—_ a sound that would certainly have put Mr West on the alert had he only heard it. The originator of that chuckle, however, was being careful to keep his merriment muffled. Only he heard the laughter. He, that is, along with one of the three men within the library, the only one who was, as yet, stirring into consciousness.

"What's so funny?" the fellow muttered, pressing his hand to the knot coming up on his forehead, then realizing something was missing. "Hey, where's my mustache?"

"Your mustache, my dear Melville, has made the ultimate sacrifice to the cause, I fear," said his boss, stepping into the library. He glanced about at the appalling destruction, then shook his great head philosophically. "Ah, but no matter, no matter. It was merely a ruse from the beginning, that _mostaccio_ , a thinly veiled camouflage through which our eminent adversaries were fully expected to penetrate forthwith."

"Huh?" said Melville.

His boss closed his eyes for a moment, a silent plea for patience. "In other words, you muscle-headed moron, the mustache was never meant for you to hide behind! Its intent, on the contrary, was to draw attention to you _—_ which indeed it did. Within two seconds of seeing you here pushing that table, Mr West and Mr Gordon recognized you as the blind man our esteemed Elmers supposedly shot down last night."

"…Oh," said Melville at length.

"But, again, no matter!" said the great man. "Let me congratulate you. You have done well, you and your brothers. I am pleased."

"Done _well?"_ Melville turned to look at the wreckage of the library. "We didn't hardly do nothing! West beat the snot out of us both times!"

"All _three_ times, if one counts last night as well, it is true. But that was not the point, you see, not at this juncture. The point was to present Mr West with a modicum of activity in order to give him a sense of accomplishment _—_ which you have done, and quite admirably so, I might add. Bravo! You have served me well."

Melville scratched at his head. "So… he got away?"

The chuckle made a reappearance. "Away? Oh no, not by any means! He is in _there_ ," and he nodded down the hall toward the dining room, "in the fair innocent clutches of the inestimable Iridescent Pearl."

"Miss Pearl! But, but he might do anything to her! We gotta protect her!" Melville rushed for the library door to hurry to the young lady's defense.

"Not so, good sir!" The boss made a gesture with his hand _—_ a musical sound of _zhing!_ filled the air _—_ and suddenly the door, which had been splintered to smithereens as the combatants crashed through it a quarter of an hour earlier, was completely whole again. Also closed and securely locked.

Melville, unable to stop in time, smacked into the door, bounced off, and landed flat on his back on the floor. Slowly he levered himself up on his elbows, then stared up at his boss in puzzlement.

"You _want_ West with her?"

"But of course! In like manner as a chess Grandmaster marshals his pawns to bring about his ultimate goal _— id est_ , the mating of his rival's king _—_ even so I have marshaled my pawns, even making pawns of my worthy opponents, to bring forth my own ultimate goal." He smiled, a chilling sight indeed. "Mr West is endeavoring to recruit my ward Pearl as an ally against me, little knowing that in doing so, he is playing into my hands. Meanwhile, Mr Gordon has infiltrated the basement and made off with my erstwhile henchman Villar…"

" _What?_ How'd he do that?" Melville struggled to his feet.

"How? Why, very neatly, very competently, as is Mr Gordon's wont. And therefore, with Mr West paired with my lovely Pearl and Mr Gordon with the rebellious Villar…" McWilliams chuckled once more and folded his hands across his ample expanse of belly. "Ah, yes, all is proceeding precisely according to plan, my dear Melville. And soon… soon our two worthy opponents will find themselves doing all my will. Not to mention," he added ruminatively, "how delightful it will be once Mr West learns at last of the existence of the incomparable Ariadne…"

At the sound of that name, Melville gave a yip and cried out, "What do you think you're doing, Boss? She'll hear you!"

McWilliams chuckled. "And if she does?" he inquired.

"You of all people know what happens if she hears you say her name three times! And now that you've said it once, we've only got two Ariadnes lef…" With a look of horror, Melville slammed his hand over his mouth.

The chuckle rolled forth all the merrier. "And now we have only one last repetition left, is that not so? Then permit me the honor!" said McWilliams, immediately declaiming, "Ariadne!"

Melville threw himself to the floor, knees tucked up against his chest and his arms wrapped protectively around his head, fully expecting…

Well, whatever he was expecting, nothing actually happened. Nothing, that is, but still more chuckling from his boss. "You see, Melville? She is not within hearing range. We could chant her dear name all evening long with her none the wiser! But soon," he added, that evil smile spilling across his vast face yet again. "Ah, soon! Mr West himself will make the acquaintance of our cherished Ariadne. And when that happens…" Again the great man chuckled. "Ah, that shall be splendid. Utterly splendid!"


	7. Act Two, Part Two

**Act Two, Part Two**

"You sure no one's following us, Mr Gordon?" Villar asked, anxiously glancing around. His hopes of finding a cab, slim though they had been even from the start, were by now utterly dashed. Few were the cabbies out and about during the wee hours of the morning, and every single one of them were blatantly ignoring the disreputable-looking pair.

"For the forty-seventh time, it's Artemus," said Artie as he too looked around. "And no, I haven't seen anyone give us a second glance yet," he replied, with the amendment of, "Well, except for the police officers, that is." For every time during their peregrination that they had come across a policeman walking his beat, the officer had growled at them, ordering them to "Move along, move along, now. No loitering or I'll run you in!"

"No sign of…" Villar added, and now he looked even more anxious than ever. "Of… well, _her?"_

Frowning, Artie as well took a sharper glance around. "Her? What do you mean by 'her'? Surely you don't mean Pearl Peznam, do you?" The pretty young thing had seemed perfectly harmless to him, but could it be that Villar knew something that he and Jim didn't?

"What?" cried the wounded man. "Lovely little Pearl? Don't make me laugh! No no no, I mean the _other_ one: Ariad…" Abruptly Villar slammed his hand over his mouth, his eyes rolling in fear as he stared in all directions. "I, I… I mean," he added once he'd taken his hand away again, and then in a whisper he spelled it out: "A-R-I-A-D-N-E."

"Ariad…?" Artie began, only to have Villar's hand now slam over his mouth instead.

"Hush! Don't say it out loud!" Villar insisted.

Artie batted the hand away. "What's the matter with you!"

"She'll hear you! She'll hear you and show up!"

" _Who_ will?"

"Ari… _Her!"_ He took another swift glance around, then limped into an alleyway. "Look, that night I came to your train, after I left again and got into that cab, _she_ found me. I thought everything was fine and that I gotten away free and clear from Manzeppi and his minions, but when the cab stopped and I got out again, suddenly I heard Manzeppi's voice calling out her name three times, and… an' then…" He blinked and shuddered. "Oh, it was awful, Mr Gordon! You know how they talk about someone fightin' like a wildcat? Well, that's her all over! I thought she was gonna kill me! An' maybe she would have, except after she'd beaten me half senseless an' blacked both my eyes, I started hearin' the count call for Pearl to get Ari… to get that crazy girl to stop whalin' on me. An'… an' after that, well…" He blinked some more, starting to breathe heavily. "I… I been in that, that birdcage ever since."

"You have? But that was two months ago!"

"Really? Man, how ti… uh, time flies when you're ha… havin'… fu…" Villar's voice trailed off into nothing as he pressed a shaky hand to his face, a sudden cold sweat springing out upon his brow. "Y… y'know what, Mr Gordon?" he said, his voice slurring badly, "I… I don' feel so good…"

And at that Villar sagged into Artie's arms. "Oh great!" muttered the agent. "No time to lose now!" Quickly he hustled the fainting ventriloquist down the alley, found the rear door of a convenient restaurant, and jimmied the lock. Pulling the wounded man inside, he settled Villar at a table in the kitchen, then made a hasty raid of the storerooms.

Shortly, armed with a good sharp paring knife, a quantity of cloth napkins, a basin of water, and a bottle of whiskey, Artie made ready to operate. His first step was to dose his patient well with a couple of shots of the whiskey. Then, though Villar protested weakly, Artie gagged him with a napkin.

"That's for you to bite down on whenever the pain gets to be too much," he explained. And then he poured some of the whiskey into the wound.

If it hadn't been for the gag, Villar's shriek would have awakened the whole neighborhood. He gurgled something indignant around the wad of cloth.

"Look, _you're_ the one who insisted on no doctors!" Artie retorted. "You've left me with no other choice, so you'll just have to put up with the best I can do, all right? And if you insist on shoving your hands into my way, I've got plenty more napkins; I can hogtie you too. Shall I?"

Villar's eyes about popped from their sockets above the gag. He considered, then shook his head and sat on his hands.

"Thank you," said Artie. "Now you may have an amateur for your attending physician, but at least I'm an educated amateur. The whiskey should kill any of those germs Dr Pasteur has been hypothesizing about. I'll try not to do any more damage than necessary getting this bullet out, but out it has to come. Understand?" He took up the knife.

Terror shining in his eyes, Villar nodded meekly.

Artie sighed. "If you'd like another shot or two of whiskey first…"

Villar's nod this time was emphatic. Artie laid aside the knife, removed the gag, supplied his patient with yet more of the improvised anesthetic, then made ready once more to remove that bullet.

…

Even in the midst of kissing the enchanting Miss Iridescent Pearl Peznam, Jim was keeping one eye on the door. After all, at any second someone might come through it! If not Manzeppi himself, there were always the minions Jim had knocked out; the trio would no doubt be regaining consciousness at any time now, after which they would surely come looking for him.

And so at length Jim disengaged himself gently from the young lady's clutches to ask, "Is there somewhere else we can go? Somewhere more, ah, private?"

"There's, uh, my room," she replied in utter naïveté.

Jim smiled. Milady's boudoir! It was a good thing for Miss Pearl that his intentions, while perhaps not particularly honorable in her uncle's estimation, were at least not dishonorable in that direction. "Sounds perfect," he said. "Let's go." Catching her by the upper arm, he pulled her to her feet and headed for the door.

…

"As I told you, here are your guns, precisely where Mr West left them when he tossed them out that window above our heads onto the lawn here," said Pearl's uncle with a wave of his hand toward the window in question. "Take them up quickly and be off with you!"

"But, Professor," said one of the Elmers, "we don't know where to go."

"Yeah!" said the other, "we was fightin' Mr West the whole time that Gordon fellow was makin' off with Villar. How're we supposed to track 'em down now? They're long gone!"

Their boss rolled his eyes eloquently. "Naturally you will not be able to follow in their footsteps now, my dear imbecile! But that is of no moment. There is one place to which they will certainly resort, whether sooner or later, and _that_ is where you shall go now and watch for them. Is that clear?"

"Only as mud," muttered one Elmer, but at the same moment a light sprang up in the other's eye. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right, sure! Of _course_ that's where they'll go. C'mon, Elmer, let's go!"

His brother shot him a cross look. "How come you know where we're goin' and I don't?"

"'Cause I'm the smart Elmer. Hey, Melville! Ain't you comin' too?"

The boss lifted a hand and shook his great head. "Ah, no. No, Melville has work yet to do here, I'm afraid. Do run along now, Elmer, Elmer. And see you do not disappoint me!"

As two of the minions vanished into the night, the third followed the big boss back up the stairs where they paused outside the entrance for a bit as McWilliams patted at his pockets, looking for something.

"You want me to go in and rescue Miss Pearl now, Boss?" asked Melville, drawing his recovered gun and giving it a twirl.

"What? No! No, put that silly thing away for now, Melville!" He scowled down at his minion, then applied himself to his search once more. "No, I assure you it is not my lovely Pearl who shall need rescuing before this night is out, but rather the formidable Mr West, who I doubt not is even now… Aha!" From a pocket McWilliams drew forth a simple orb of pure crystal. He cradled the shimmering sphere in one palm while with the other hand making several passes over it. There was a _zhing!_ in the air as the crystal ball began to glow.

Melville shrank back nervously. "I… I still don't know how you do that stuff, Professor, but every time you do, it gives me the willies!"

"Do hush, Melville, or I shall certainly give you worse than that! Perhaps," he added, an evil smirk playing at his lips, "what I shall give you is to Ariadne, hmm? Would you like that, my fine fellow?"

Melville's face went ashen. "N-n-no, Professor! I, I, I wouldn't like that at all!"

"Then be silent, and that at once!" McWilliams returned his attention to the crystal ball in his hand and gave a satisfied nod. "Ah, just as I had deduced, Mr West is on the move now and taking our precious Pearl with him. Excellent! They are about to enter the main corridor even as we speak, though, so we must needs wait a few moments more before we make our own entrance."

"And then I can plug West?" asked Melville eagerly, drawing his gun anew.

McWilliams aimed a glower at his minion and waved a hand his way. A musical note of _zhing!_ filled the air…

And Melville found himself in the uneasy predicament of needing to extract the butt end of his revolver from the interior of his mouth.

…

Jim eased the dining room door open and peeked into the corridor. "No one's here," he said to the girl behind him. "Which way?"

She pointed across the hall. "Through that door there, beyond the paper cutter."

"All right," said Jim and steered her in that direction, before asking with a certain amount of incredulity, "Wait: you mean this grisly contraption here is simply a machine for cutting _paper?"_

The girl nodded. "Uncle writes lots of pamphlets about alchemy and Mediaeval subjects and so forth, prints them up, assembles them into booklets, then uses this cutter to trim them into shape to sell them." She paused. "Oh dear! That remodeling you and the three Melman brothers were doing in the library probably ruined most of his latest pamphlets! I'll have to help him make more."

"You can do that later," said Jim, filing away the information that his recent sparring partners had been a set of brothers named Melville Melman, Elmer Melman, and a second Elmer Melman _—_ what in the world had their parents been thinking! But for the moment, though… "C'mon," Jim told Pearl and led her to the doorway beyond the paper cutter, waited while she unlocked the door, then pulled her through it, locked it once more, and pocketed her key, all the while taking a good look around.

"This is your bedroom?" he asked skeptically. It certainly didn't look like one! Instead it resembled nothing either more nor less than a laboratory. There were worktables everywhere sporting all varieties of apparatus: flasks, tubing, burners, bottles of chemicals. In the far corner stood a full-sized printing press surrounding by its own peculiar paraphernalia of ink, type cases, composing sticks, and the like, along with reams upon reams of paper. Jim casually crossed the room and checked the printing form loaded onto the press, relieved to find it in fact contained four pages' worth of movable type and not, as he had feared, engraved plates for counterfeiting currency.

"You sleep here?" he now asked, turning to Pearl. "Where's your bed?"

"Oh, obviously this isn't my room!" she scoffed. "This is Uncle's workroom. Our bedrooms are through there." She pointed at a door in the wall to the right.

"All right," said Jim. "Lead on."

Again Miss Pearl used a key to unlock the door, again Jim locked it up once they had passed through, and again he pocketed her key. This time they found themselves in a short corridor with three closed doors facing them: one to the right, one to the left, and one straight ahead. Jim cocked an eyebrow at her. "Three rooms: one for you, one for your uncle, and one for the Melman brothers?"

"Oh no!" she replied. "The Melmans are our servants, so their rooms are in the basement. No, this room is mine." She pointed to the right. "That one is Uncle's." She pointed straight ahead. "And… and that one…" She started to point at the third, then faltered.

Jim peered at her closely. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Pearl's face twisted into a mask of misery even as her hands twisted together, one of her thumbs tracing an endless figure eight upon the opposite knuckles. "That's… that's Ariadne's room," she mumbled.

"Ariadne? Who's that?"

"She's… Uncle Elroy keeps her locked up. He has to! She's dangerous. She's… He doesn't like me to say it, but she's insane."

"But who is she?" Jim persisted.

"She's…" Pearl dropped her eyes and murmured miserably. "She's my sister."


	8. Act Two, Part Three

**Act Two, Part Three**

"…and… there!" In triumph Artie dropped a small lump of lead into the basin with a plop, then leaned back and rolled his shoulders, working the tension out of them.

Villar retrieved his hands from where he'd been sitting on them and pulled off the gag. "That's it? You're done?"

"Almost." Artie patted at a hidden pocket in his clothing, then pulled out a small pouch. "Emergency sewing kit," he said. "Now that the bullet's out, I should stitch up that hole in your leg."

Suddenly there came a sound from the front of the restaurant: the sound of a key turning in a lock!

Artie glanced at his pocket watch and gave a low whistle: two in the morning! Why on earth would a restaurateur have to go and show up at his shop at two in the ever-loving morning? He took a swift look around, suddenly recognizing just what sort of kitchen equipment was in view. "Great!" he muttered to himself. "Of all places I might have broken us into, I just _had_ to pick a bakery! C'mon, we gotta get out of here!" After jamming both the watch and the sewing kit back into his pockets, Artie swiftly cobbled together a new bandage and tied it in place over Villar's wound. "Let's go!" he hissed, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Ok, ok!" Villar hissed back as he made a grab for two items from the table, then hopped up and set off limping for the back door. As Artie hurried to catch up and support him, he had to wonder what Villar had in mind. Well, not so much wondering why the man had helped himself to the bottle of whiskey; that wasn't much of a mystery! But the other item, that was a puzzle: why had Villar fished in the basin to salvage the spent bullet? Souvenir of a nightmare?

Shaking his head, Artie shouldered Villar down the back alley and around the corner out of sight, just as the baker gave a screech of indignation and raced out his back door crying for a policeman.

…

"Your sister?" said Jim, turning to eye the door to the left. "What's wrong with her?"

Pearl shook her head. "Uncle never really talks about her. I'm… I'm not even supposed to speak her name. We're twins. Uncle took us in when we were quite small, perhaps six or seven years old. I barely remember…" She looked away, her eyes unfocused for a moment. "The first thing I can ever recall is Uncle Elroy holding my hand, calling my name and telling me that he would do everything in his power to help my dear sister, but that for the time being she would have to be kept locked away." Now she blinked, her eyes returning to Jim's face. "So you see," she added earnestly, "this is why I owe Uncle Elroy everything _—_ everything! _—_ and I'll never do anything against him! He's been nothing but kind and generous towards me for all these years _—_ buying me the best clothing, sending me to the finest boarding schools _—_ and he still hopes to find a cure for my sister!" Abruptly she gripped Jim's arm. "You… you understand, don't you?"

Jim nodded. So that's how it was! It looked like Manzeppi had managed to find the perfect hold over the beautiful Pearl, far superior to any bond the corpulent magician had ever forged with either Miranda or Gerda Sharff. Still… "She's been Prof McWilliams' ward for how many years now? _—_ a dozen? _—_ and in all this time the only treatment he's found for her is to keep her locked up like a prisoner?" He shook his head in wounded sympathy. "That's just wrong, Pearl! Your sister deserves better than that!" He took her hand and bestowed a confident smile upon her. "Let me help. I have access to some of the best doctors in the country. If we take her away from here, you and I, I'm sure I can get help for your sister. Real help, not just empty words."

"Do you… do you really think you can cure her?" breathed Pearl, her eyes wide with hope.

"I'll do everything in my power to find her the cure she needs, yes. That I promise you, Pearl," said Jim in absolute earnest, for even though this was in fact a ploy to win Pearl to his side against her uncle, Jim was ever a true man of his word and so he had every intention of finding the poor kid's sister the kind of help she really needed.

"Oh!" the girl's hand flew over her mouth. "Oh, I only hope you can!" she whimpered as a single tear slid down her alabaster cheek.

"Then let's take her out of here," said Jim. "Do you have the key for this room?"

Pearl's face fell. "Oh no! No, only Uncle has that key. I'm never permitted to enter her room. No, not even to call to her through the door."

"All right, that's no problem. I'll take care of it." Jim pulled the lock pick out from under his lapel and swiftly defeated the lock. "You wait out here," he told the girl, and then he stepped inside.

This room to the left was in complete darkness, the only light coming in through the open door where Pearl waited in silhouette. Jim paused to listen, but he heard nothing _—_ nothing, that is, but the anxious breathing of the girl in the doorway behind him. He took a step forward, then another, and in the meantime slipped a match from his vest pocket and made ready to strike it with his thumbnail. Now, what was the sister's name again? Pearl had said it, and then he had repeated… Oh yes! "Ariadne," he called out softly. "I'm a friend. My name is Jim. I'm here with your sister Pearl, and we…"

A sudden snarl like that of a ferocious beast interrupted him as something slammed into his back, knocking him to the ground. The unlit match went flying from his hand into the darkness. Quickly Jim rolled onto his back, trying in vain to catch hold of his relentless enemy. Hands like claws scrabbled at him, scratching him, no doubt drawing blood, even as unshod feet kicked out at him again and again and again.

Unable to grab his foe and subdue her _—_ and it was with some effort that Jim reminded himself that his adversary with both a girl and insane _—_ he at last thrust her away, then sprang up to his feet. No sooner was he upright than she came racing towards him again, squalling, gibbering, obviously intending to fling herself at him anew. Though he could not see her, he was able to track her by the very sounds she was making _—_ and so he sidestepped at the last second, then tripped her.

He heard her as she crashed headlong to the floor, then threw himself atop her before calling out, "Pearl! I've got Ariadne now, but I need some help. Light the lamps for me, and quickly!"

No reply. A swift glance towards the door where the light yet spilled in from the hallway beyond showed him no sign anymore of his fair companion. Where was Pearl?

But now he had no more time to wonder about the other sister, for the savage Ariadne writhed in his grasp, seized one of his hands _—_ and bit him.

He reacted on instinct, his other fist flying to belt her across the chin, and he only just barely forced himself to change the punch to a slap. It worked though. Her teeth let loose of his hand even as the girl screeched in pain, then collapsed under him, weeping.

Well, that was good. Jim always did hate having to hit a girl. "I'm sorry, Ariadne," he assured her as he got to his feet. He felt for her hand and lifted her up as well. "I didn't want to hurt you. C'mon, let's get into the light where I can see if I did any damage, and then we'll…"

Jim's only warning was the sudden growl from the girl whose hand he was holding. Her other hand fastened onto his wrist as well, then she yanked his arm so hard she pulled him completely off balance. The next thing Jim knew, he was measuring his length on the floor.

"Fine!" he muttered in disgust as he bounded to his feet once more. "I've been trying to be gentle with you, Ariadne, but since you're the one insisting on getting rough, I'll just have to…"

At that moment something heavy crashed into Jim's head with the sound of shattering porcelain. His last conscious thought was that he'd been far too easy on the girl. And then Jim tumbled into darkness.


	9. Act Two, Part Four

**Act Two, Part Four**

"Hey, where we goin', Elmer?"

"To the train yards, you nitwit! I already done told you: we're goin' to that train the boss had us search while them Federal guys were locked up in the pokey last night."

"Yeah, but… but don't you think we oughta go to that other place instead?"

"Other place? _What_ other place?"

"The other place the boss had us search, bonehead! And don't tell me you don't remember it, 'cause he had us search it _three_ times. An' that means it's gotta be more important than that there train, since he only had us search it once."

"Nope," said his companion with a shake of his head. "We are goin' to the train."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"'Cause I'm the smart Elmer and I said so!"

"Yeah? Well… well, I'm the stubborn Elmer and I say we go to that other place!"

"Train!"

"Other place!"

" _Train!"_

" _Other…!"_

At this point anyone looking out at the street would have seen two men coming to blows. But as it happened, the only witness of the altercation was the fat disk of the moon sailing far overhead to the west.

…

"See anyone followin' us, Mr Gordon?"

Artie scowled as he glanced around. "Artemus! It's Artemus, I keep telling you! And I might add that you've been asking me that very same question every five minutes since we had to abandon that bakery, Villar, and my answer to you is still going to be the very same one as well: if I spot anyone, I'll let you know. Now, let me ask you _my_ very same question for the eleventy-fifth time: where are we going?"

Villar snickered. "North."

"Yeah, and that's what _you_ always say!" Artie grumbled. He shifted his grip on the wounded ventriloquist and added, "Look, it's getting so late it's early already, and you're getting heavy, and I still need to sew up that hole in your leg, and…" He gave a sigh. "And then I've got Jim to worry about as well. No telling what's going on back there at that infernal lecture hall!"

"Aw, who cares?" said Villar and brandished the whiskey bottle. "'Long as we got away from ol' Manzebbi… uh, Mazzerup… no, Marzipan… aw, whatever! We got away from that big ol' bat fastard, an' thash as mush as I care!" He took a swig.

Artie frowned and cast a sidelong look at the man he was all but carrying down the street. "Say, is it my imagination, or are you drunk as a skunk?" he demanded.

For reply Villar gave a giggle, then launched into song:

" _Rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,  
Shoutin' the battle cry of freedom,  
We'll shing the Union lyrics, an' not the Rebel lines,  
Shoutin' the battle cry of free…!"_

At this point Artie slammed a hand over Villar's mouth and hissed, "You hush before you wake up half the town!" He then made a grab for the whiskey bottle as well, only to find himself in a fight with what amounted to a tipsy octopus: Villar's hands were everywhere, trying to keep hold of the booze.

At length, though, Villar lost his balance and sprawled on the edge of the board sidewalk, leaving Artie as the victor. In triumph he held the bottle up out of the reach of his routed foe so as to take a look at the contents. "Barely any left!" Artie exclaimed. "Oh, I've heard of feeling no pain, but this is ridiculous! I oughta have my head examined for letting you be in charge of your own medication!"

"Aw, c'mon, Mishter Guh-guh-gordon! Givit back!" Villar whined. And not in his normal tone of voice either. For suddenly, and much to Artie's horror, the erstwhile ventriloquist had switched into the gratingly shrill voice of his long-abandoned dummy Julio: "Don' be a meanie, Mishter Gordon! Villar ain't got no apples to munch on while I talk, sho he's gotta have shomethin' to _drink_ instead. Riiiight?" He drew out that last word to an excruciating length.

Artie flinched at that speech; he'd forgotten how much he loathed Julio! What he hadn't forgotten, however, was how much even more so Villar himself loathed the creepy hunk of wood. So why was he talking like that? Could it be because…

Artie glanced again at the depleted bottle of booze, then tossed it into the gutter. "Remind me never to get a ventriloquist drunk!" he muttered to himself, then set about hauling Villar back to his unsteady feet and steering him along the street once more.

A block farther on, Villar stumbled and collapsed with a disturbingly puerile giggle against the side of a small delivery wagon moving slowly along the road. "Whoopie!" he squeaked at the driver in that atrocious Julio voice. "Olly olly oxen free! Y'mama wearsh army boots!"

"Excuse us, sir," Artie murmured in apology, tugging Villar back upright. "He doesn't mean anything by it; he needs to get on home so he can sleep it off, and…"

But the driver, a mild-looking man with wildly frizzing hair, pulled up on the reins to stop the wagon, then tipped his head to one side, giving his attention to the pair not by means of his eyes but with one of his ears. "Julio?" he said in cautious amazement.

"Well no, actually this is Vil…" Artie began, then dropped both his jaw and his patient. "Wait a minute: you know Julio?"

The frizzy-haired man shook his head sadly as he set the wagon's brake. "Aw, Frank, you promised me you'd lay off the booze! You _know_ every time you get drunk, you turn into Julio!"

"Ah… wait… What?" said Artie.

But no one was taking any notice of him anymore. The driver swung down from his seat, then out from under it he produced a white cane. Sliding his hand along the side of the wagon, he tapped the cane back and forth as he moved carefully towards the drunk flopped in the middle of the road. "Come along now, Frank. I'll drive you home. You know, I was beginning to wonder what had become of you; you've been missing these past two months!"

As for Villar, he smiled up at the cane-carrying driver and squeaked out, "Jerome! Hey, thish's great; jusht the guy we were comin' to see! Jerome, ol' pal, meet Mishter Gordon!"

…

His head was throbbing, his eyelids like lead. Still, Jim West forced them to blink open anyway, only to have to squint against the light.

Light. Well, considering the last thing he remembered was fighting in the dark, this had to be an improvemen…

"Ariadne!" The name flew from his lips as he sat suddenly upright, only to bounce his already-bruised noggin off the heavy bars of the giant birdcage of which he now found himself to be the unwilling occupant.

"Ah!" came that all too familiar high-flown voice. "So our Mr West has already progressed beyond nodding acquaintance with the exquisite sylph, and is now on a first-name basis with her! Mark that well, Melville _—_ oh, and do get up and stop cringing there upon the floor, you poltroon! She's not even in here!"

Jim looked about, taking in the _here_ which he was apparently not sharing with the insane girl. His first impression of the surroundings, in one corner of which his personal accommodation was suspended upon a wheeled frame, was that this was a young lady's boudoir _—_ and the second impression, that it consisted of entirely too much pink: pink mirrored vanity here, pink four-poster bed there, pink frills and laces everywhere, even one life-sized pink-clad rag doll propped up on a delicate pink chair in the far corner.

And front and center within this bastion of femininity stood the imposing bulk of Jim's gracious host, with the chagrined and mustacheless Melville just scrambling to his feet at the great man's side.

"Well, well, Mr West, fancy meeting you here!" purred the professor, his pale eyes glittering behind his pince-nez. "Enjoying your visit?"

"Where's Pearl?" said Jim.

The professor nodded towards the door. "Across the hall in her own room, napping. She's had an exhausting day."

"And Ariadne?"

A chuckle rumbled from the great man's chest as he reached out a hand and gripped his minion's arm, preventing the horrified Melville from flinging himself to the floor once more. "Oh, she's in there too. The adorable twins, having a quiet tête-à-tête for the nonce. It's not often they get to spend any time together."

"So I've been told," said Jim dryly. "Then this is Ariadne's room?"

"Professor! That's three times now!" Melville hissed, but his boss only waved him to silence, then gestured at the room's stunning decor. "Ah, yes! Every little _tchotchke_ a demure young lady could possibly desire, wouldn't you say?"

"Including a cage big enough to house a roc, yes."

Again his host chuckled. "True, true. Nothing but the best for the poor dear girl! I presume Pearl informed you of her sister's, ah, affliction?"

"She did. After which Ariadne gave me a live demonstration. Since when have you been taking in homeless waifs, Count Manzeppi?"

The pale eyes behind the glasses blinked. "I… I beg your pardon, Mr West. What was the name by which you denoted me? Count Man… er, Mandolin?"

Jim gave a tight sigh. "You know precisely the name I called you. And to put it in full, whatever else you may 'denote' yourself, you are Count Carlos Mario Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi. The thirteenth, for all I know."

The professor's jaw gaped for a moment. Then he snapped it shut and drew himself up tall, chins elevated, making ready to pour forth in a flood of invective a philippic against Mr West's invocation of that preposterous name. Except that before he could commence, a rough voice spoke up by his elbow:

"No, he ain't."

McWilliams smiled. "There, you see? Even Melville resents the aspersions you endeavor to cast against me, sir! He…"

"You got one of the names wrong," Melville went on, recklessly interrupting the professor. "It ain't Mario, it's Maria! Count Carlos _Maria_ Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi! I mean, the two names don't even sound alike. Right? Mario has the, whaddaya call it _—_ oh right, the accent! _—_ on the first sylla-thingy, but with Maria, the accent's in the middle. See? Nothing alike. Can't possibly mistake one for the other, not if you're listening, so you see…"

"Enough!" bellowed the flabbergasted professor. Once again he drew himself up tall before hissing out a string of syllables that somehow caused all the gas lamps to grow dim. This was followed by a wave of his hand, upon which the musical sound of _zhing!_ filled the air…

And a moment later when the lamps recovered themselves, there on the floor crouched something that strongly resembled Melville, yet also looked suspiciously like nothing more than a man-sized toad.

The professor glared down at the toad. "Finished?" he rumbled.

" _Urk!_ Uh, yeah, Boss," croaked the toad sheepishly.

"Excellent," the professor nodded, then turned back to the man in the birdcage with a sigh. "As the great Byzantine Emperor Herodotus once informed us, ' _O quid solutis est lingua modicum quidem membrum est, sed facit eam succendam ignem!_ ' Or, to put it in the vulgar, 'Ah, what a little member is the tongue, but what a great fire doth it kindle!'"

"That's not Herodotus; it's the Bible," Jim corrected. "New Testament, James' famous discourse on the tongue _—_ inaccurately quoted, I might add. And besides that, there never was an Emperor Herodotus ruling over Byzantium, or for that matter, over anywhere else. The only famous Herodotus in history at all was a historian, not a king. Of course, you might possibly be confusing him with the well-known dynasty of the Herods who were kings of Judea back in the days of Christ Je…"

At this point the professor, his eyes blazing with fury, lifted his hand, lowered it again to wave it at the toad at his side, then lifted the hand once more. "Mr West! Are _you_ now finished?"

Jim grinned. "For the moment. And while I can't say it's exactly _good_ to see you again, Count Manzeppi, I will say that I'm glad to see you drop the charade. I was getting a little tired of Prof McWilliams."

"As was I, dear boy, as was I," said that eminent maestro of thaumaturgy. He removed his pince-nez and with a flip of his wrist, somehow transformed the glasses into a boutonniere which he promptly slipped into his lapel. His hand then stretched forth to pluck from thin air a top hat, followed by a cigar. At a flourish of his fingers flames sprang up from within the hat, providing him the means by which to light the cigar. He then placed the hat over his heart and bowed regally to his pent-up guest _—_ at which point, from out of nowhere, a voluminous red velvet cape lined with purple silk unfurled, draping itself about his shoulders and sweeping toward the floor. He straightened up again and settled the chapeau, no longer aflame, at a rakish angle upon his brow. "It is good," he said, smiling broadly, "to be back!"

 **End of Act Two**


	10. Act Three, Part One

**Act Three, Part One**

"Welcome to my humble home, Mr Gordon," said Jerome as the pair of them hauled the pixilated Villar into the front room of the small house. "There's a sofa over here," he added, and shortly they tumbled the ventriloquist onto the shabby bit of furniture.

"You, ah… call him Frank?" asked Artie as Jerome settled his inebriated guest more comfortably on the sofa, tucking a cushion under his head, then spreading a blanket over him.

"Hmm? Oh yes. Yes, when he gave up the act with Julio, he wanted a new name, so I suggested Frank. I also took Julio off his hands for him, since he reminded him so much of the bad old days. I keep him over there." Jerome nodded toward the far corner of the room where, sure enough, Artie spotted the creepy little doll flopped in a chair.

He shuddered. "I'm surprised Villar _—_ ah, Frank, I mean _—_ didn't chop ol' Julio up and use him for firewood!"

"To tell you the truth, Mr Gordon…"

"Artemus."

"Artemus? All right, to tell you the truth, Artemus, I'm a bit surprised at that myself."

"Finally!" Artie muttered under his breath. "Someone who listens!"

Jerome, not noticing the side remark, went on with, "Frank was _very_ angry back in those days, as you might guess. Roseanne _—_ my wife, that is," and now he nodded toward the mantelpiece, upon which Artie spotted a faded photograph. He took up the frame and found himself looking at a woman sticking out her tongue with her eyes squinted into two narrow slits and her hair frizzing out in wilder profusion even than Jerome's.

"Er…" Artie ventured, "if you don't mind me asking, why would a blind man keep a photograph on his mantel?"

"Oh, that's easy!" his host replied. "It's so other people can see what an absolute treasure I found to marry!" He beamed, and Artie found himself glad that Jerome couldn't see the look of perplexity that washed over his face at the word _treasure_ being applied to the woman in the photo!

As Artie gaped in consternation at the portrait, Jerome continued with his story, all the while moving around the room tidying up a bit, "Anyway, Roseanne overheard the poor fellow pleading for a job at the theater where we were appearing…"

"Theater?" That grabbed Artie's attention. He set aside the photo. "You're actors?"

"Oh, that was long ago, back before my lovely Roseanne passed away. We had a comedy act back in the day, and before that, I was a solo, playing the violin." He waved a hand at a beautiful old violin sitting on a small shelf on the wall opposite the door. "Now, the curious part about me and Roseanne is when we started out, she was the straight man setting things up for me to deliver the punch lines, only pretty soon we found that the audiences were laughing at her straight lines while my punch lines were garnering nothing but the chirping of crickets! Well, as the old saying goes, Mama didn't raise no fool, so I switched roles with Roseanne and never looked back." He chuckled in reminiscence. "Why, it got to the point where I would walk out on the stage with her, ask her, 'So, Rosie, how's your brother?' and for the rest of the act, I didn't need to say another word. How the houses roared!"

"Wait!" cried Artie. "You mean you're, ah… oh, what's the name…?" He snapped his fingers. "Ah! Jerry and Rosie! That's right, isn't it? I've heard of you!"

Jerome smiled and nodded. "Oh yes! That was us. That was us indeed." His smile faded and he sighed. "The worse day of my life was the day I lost my darling Roseanne. Worse even than the day a couple of years later when I lost my sight. Still… it's a poorly recognized fact of life that one runs the risk of crying a bit if one allows oneself to be tamed. And another poorly recognized fact is that it is only with the heart that one can see clearly, for what is essential is invisible to the eye…" He paused, standing there with a pile of stray clothes draped over his arms, a top hat the exact same shade of light brown as his hair perched on his head at an odd angle. At length he sighed and dropped off his burdens atop the uncaring Julio, then skimmed the hat across the room to land with uncanny accuracy on the hat-rack. "At any rate," he added, "nowadays instead of delivering lines, whether they be straight _or_ punch, all I deliver are candies."

He patted the slumbering Villar on the shoulder, then crossed into the kitchen with an inquisitive Artie trailing right behind him. "Candies?"

"Mm-hmm. I make 'em. Chocolates, toffees, taffies, brittles. You name it, I make it. I may be the smallest candy operation in San Francisco, but none of the other candy makers have got a thing on Jerome Fox! Make 'em right here, deliver 'em myself…"

"That reminds me," said Artie thoughtfully, "and no offense intended, but I never would have believed a blind man could drive a delivery wagon. I suppose the horses…?"

Jerome was nodding. "Right, right. The horses know the route, so I let them do the navigating. And when I say 'home,' they bring me home _—_ as you no doubt noticed tonight. Oh, and by the way, thanks for helping me get them rubbed down and settled into the stable."

"My pleasure. Oh!" Artie snapped his fingers again. "I nearly forgot! I had to take a bullet out of Vill… ah, Frank's leg earlier tonight, and I still need to stitch up the wound for him. If you'll excuse me?" He stepped out of the kitchen, heading back to his patient on the sofa.

"Fine, fine," said Jerome. "And while you do that, I'll get some of my special top secret hangover remedy ready. One shot of that, and Frank will be stone sober in mere seconds!"

"Ok, you do that, and… What?" Artie appeared in the kitchen door again. "Sober in seconds! But that's nonsense! Not even coffee sobers you up that fast!"

Grinning like a mad hatter, Jerome sang:

" _A little nonsense now and then  
Is relished by the wisest men."_

Then, with a wink and a nod to his astonished guest, he started pulling out bowls, bottles, baskets, buckets, barrels, bags, and bins. With a merry "Ha-cha-cha-cha!" he rubbed his hands together, then shooed Artie from the kitchen to give himself plenty of room to concoct his uncanny brew.

…

"You do realize, Count," said Jim to his captor, "that Mr Gordon and I saw through your flimsy disguise as Prof McWilliams as soon as we got our first look at you _—_ in fact, as soon as we first heard you speaking."

Manzeppi chuckled, busily whisking a pair of magenta gloves out of thin air, and after donning them, from the same source he manifested a ruby ring big enough to choke a horse which he promptly slid onto his right middle finger. "Ah, much better!" he proclaimed. "I've come to regard myself as being in something of a state of _déshabillé_ without these, ah…" He waggled his eyebrows. "… _handy_ accoutrements, you understand." He puffed on his cigar, looked around for suitable seating, and finding nothing in his ward's boudoir that might reliably bear up under his considerable bulk, he frowned and growled out, "Melville! Go at once and fetch me my chairs!"

The toad twisted his neck in a vain attempt to look up at his boss' face. "Like this? When I can't even stand up straight?"

The great man glared down at the unsightly creature, and with a snort of "Oh, very well!" he gave a wave of his hand. To the accompaniment of a musical _zhing!_ Melville found himself to be instantly transformed from toad back to toady. Bowing and scraping all the way, he bounded from the room to go and do his master's bidding.

With a puff on his cigar, the unveiled magician added, "Now, as you were saying, Mr West?"

"I'm saying you never fooled us for a moment with your Prof McWilliams masquerade, Count."

His captor broke out into a gloating grin. "Ah, but that is where you are _wrong_ , my good sir! You have obviously surmised that Manzeppi is the verity and McWilliams the illusion, when in actuality it is quite the reverse! I have always been Elroy McWilliams, and it is only in these latter years that I have assumed the persona of Count Carlos Maria Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi," and with a bow he added, "your servant. Which illuminates the information you received from Washington, no doubt, confirming that one Elroy McWilliams, PhD, is an authentic professor at Yale University, hmm?"

Jim, hiding his astonishment, gave a brief nod. "That does shed a little light on things, yes."

"No doubt! In fact, my father was himself an academic, and my mother self-taught in a broad range of the scholarly disciplines. It was their fondest wish that I, their only scion, should follow in their footsteps _—_ and for the most part, I did. But then one day as I was perambulating about campus and passed close by the walls of the library, it happened by chance that someone sitting in an open window of an upper floor perusing Machiavelli's _The Prince_ lost his grip upon that weighty tome, which plummeted down like the fall of Satan to cosh me upon the pate! And when I recovered my senses…"

The count cocked an eyebrow, and with a Mephistophelean leer upon his face, he wagged the hand holding his cigar at his prisoner. "Ah, noble adversary, at that moment was I reborn! No longer content to be a mere lecturer and molder of young minds, a cog of Academe spending my life in an endless hurly-burly of publishing or perishing! No, from then on I cast my eyes upon a higher calling." He smirked. "Or lower, depending upon one's point of view, that is. I had long been interested in the arts of legerdemain, having trained myself from my youth upwards as a conjurer at children's parties and the like. Now I set forth to become more _—_ much more! From lowly illusionist I would pass on to the reality; from a mere mummer to a master of magic! And I would do this in order to become what my impecunious parents could never even dream of achieving: I would become wealthy! I had the wit, the cunning, the native intelligence. And added to all these, the blow to my head had unlocked within me a ruthlessness never before hinted at in my character. I was a new man, and one without the crippling influences of pity or piety."

"Not to mention, brevity," put in Jim.

Manzeppi chuckled. "Indeed, but concision has _never_ been among my attributes, Mr West! I continued with my professorial career as a veil of propriety, indulging my new true self during sabbaticals and the like. I collected to myself minions to aid me in my goals, dubbing ourselves the Eccentrics, taking on occasional commissions at high premiums, all in the interest of becoming all that I could be: depraved, immoral, iniquitous."

Jim nodded. "And above all, rich."

"Precisely!" Manzeppi smirked. "Only to have you and your esteemed partner show up to meddle in our affairs." He shook his head. "Deplorable! Utterly deplorable."

"It's a living," said Jim. "And somehow between your public scholastic career and your private life of crime, you wound up with a pair of wards."

Manzeppi smiled. "Ah yes, the treasure of my heart, are they not? Would you, ah, like to hear more about them?"

Jim shrugged, spreading his hands within the confines of the birdcage. "It's not like I have anything else to do at the moment."

Manzeppi chuckled. "No, it isn't, is it?" Raising his voice, he bellowed out, "Melville!"

At that moment the minion appeared in the doorway lugging one of the count's chairs from the dining room. "Here you go, Professor!" He wrestled the chair into the middle of the boudoir, then turned it to face the cage, puffing from effort but beaming with pride.

His accomplishment was met with an arch of the brow from his employer. "And the second chair, Melville?"

The minion's face fell. "Oh. Yeah. Right, second chair. You just gotta have two chairs, 'steada one like a normal person!" Mumbling under his breath, Melville went off to fetch the other chair as well.

"Now," said Manzeppi, resting a forearm upon the back of his first chair, "if you're quite comfortable, Mr West, I shall unfold to you the tale of Ariadne and Pearl."


	11. Act Three, Part Two

**Act Three, Part Two**

"Wow!" Villar sat bolt upright on the sofa, his eyes all but bulging from their sockets. "Jerome, you know good and well I don't like it when you give me that sober-up juice! I don't wanna be purple!"

"Purple?" exclaimed Artie, glancing back and forth rapidly between the ventriloquist and the blind man. "What's this about purple?"

"Now, now, Frank," said Jerome with a wag of his finger, "it only turns you purple for a couple of hours; you know that. And anyway, as dark as your skin tone is, who can tell? Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to tidy up my kitchen." Smiling, their genial host made his way back into the other room.

" _I'll_ know I'm purple!" Villar hollered after him. "And besides," he muttered, "it shows up in the whites of my eyes; Roseanne always teased me about _that_." He threw off the blanket, took a sharp look around the living room, and frowned. Then he jumped to his feet and started limping all over the place, tossing things everywhere.

"What are you doing?" Artie demanded. "He just finished cleaning up in here. And once again, what's this about purple?"

"Aw, it's that sober-in-a-second concoction of his! It has this side effect of turning your skin purple. I remember when he first came up with the stuff: he decided to use himself for a guinea pig, and all of a sudden his wife starts screeching, 'Violet! You're turning violet _—_ violet!' Well, it does wear off in a couple of hours like he said, but in the meantime _—_ ew!" He shuddered and kept on throwing things all over the place.

Artie grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. "Stop that! What are you trying to do, get us tossed out of here?"

"I'm trying to find…!" Abruptly Villar pressed a finger to his own lips, then dropped his voice from a near-scream to a whisper. "Trying to find Julio," he finished.

"Oh, him! He's right over there on that chair. But what do you want with him?"

"Shh!" Villar glanced at the kitchen before adding, "I don't want Jerome to hear us." He strode for the chair Artie had indicated, scattered the stack of clothing under which the dummy lay buried, and snatched up Julio.

"Why not? What do you not want Jerome to hear?" Artie followed Villar across the room, along the way picking up and setting to rights the wreckage the other man had left in his wake. "And hey! What are you doing now?"

"Will you keep your voice down?" Villar hissed, whirling away from the dummy briefly, his pocket knife in his hand. Turning back again, he went back to doing what had just startled Artie: he was using the knife to gouge at the dummy's left eye!

"I don't want Jerome to know a thing about this, Mr Gordon," he explained softly. "Because what Jerome doesn't know, Count Manzeppi can't go after him to find out."

"It's Artemus," said Artie automatically. "But why are you mutilating Julio? I mean, yes, you have plenty of reason to hate him, but why would you wait until now to… Ah!"

For at that moment the painted wooden eye popped out of its socket. Villar glanced back at the kitchen from within which Jerome's voice floated out, singing to himself:

 _Beautiful soup! So rich and green  
Waiting in a hot tureen… _

"Good," murmured Villar, "he's in a world of his own, and likely one of pure imagination. Ok." He turned over the wooden eye in his hand, inserted the tip of the pocket knife into a small crack along the side, twisted…

 _Pop!_ The eye split in two, and from the hollow space within a tiny white pouch dropped out into Villar's palm.

Swiftly Villar folded up the pocket knife and crammed it into a pocket, jammed the two halves of the wooden eye back together, shoved the eye into its place in the dummy's face, then started rushing around the room, grabbing up an armful of items, among them the framed portrait of Jerome's beloved Roseanne. He then headed for the door, turning back at the last moment to shoot Artie a frenzied look from distinctly purplish eyes and hiss at him, "Don't you dare follow me!" before disappearing outside into the early morning twilight.

Artie, after a moment of stunned amazement, snuck a glance at the kitchen and, satisfied that Jerome was busy within and hadn't noticed anything of what Villar had been up to, did exactly what he'd been told not to: he headed outside as well, following Villar.

…

"Picture the scene, Mr West," Count Manzeppi intoned to his caged captive. "On a certain evening, lo, these dozen years ago, as I was out for a postprandial stroll, a coarse brigand made it his dubious honor to waylay me. The ruffian was wielding an abominably large knife and seemed to think this fact entitled him every scrap of value that I had about my person.

"Well, I ask you, is that not risible? I found it to be so, whereupon I laughed. He, for his part, was by no means amused and brandished the knife, all the better to intimidate me.

"Or so he plainly expected. For my part, I lifted my hand, gesturing thusly…" He gave a wave of his hand, which was accompanied by a musical note of _zhing_! "…and behold! The knife in his hand writhed, becoming a snake! Which he promptly discarded, as you may well imagine. Rapidly he backed away from it, eyes like saucers, mouth gabbling out incoherent blather _—_ hmm, very entertaining, as a matter of fact." He paused to muse on the recollection of the mugger's discomfiture before adding, "But I digress. Having thus disarmed the impudent rogue, I nodded him a good evening and proceeded on my way.

"At this point I heard from behind me the fellow's voice hiss out, 'Ariadne! Get 'im!'

"A most curious phrase, to be sure! A name of such rare antiquity, invoked by a common street thug? And addressed, I had no doubt, to a girl _—_ some mere slip of a female! _—_ whom he expected to best a man such as myself, a man by whom he had already been mastered? Curiosity alone compelled me to turn back and see what form my new assailant might take.

"I had only the barest glimpse of the girl, a waif of extraordinarily tender years _—_ perhaps six or seven _—_ before she was upon me. She fought me, as the saying goes, tooth and nail _—_ and it was only the fact that she was indeed armed with nothing more than these most personal of weapons that saved me from grave bodily injury. The urchin was as barbarous as any wild beast! I was appalled!"

A malevolent smile curled the count's lip as a wicked sparkle kindled in his eye. "Appalled, yes," he amended. "But also intrigued.

"Managing at last to thrust the little brute from me, I lifted my hand as I had before, gesturing again as I had before, and there in my hand appeared a box of chocolates, which I promptly proffered to the gamin. She glared down at it, demonstrating no sign of appreciation whatsoever, but instead instantly struck it from my grasp. I tried again, this time producing an ice cream cone. Again she evinced no recognition of the dainty with which I was essaying to distract her, and she dashed it too to the ground.

"But the third time, as they say, is the charm. On this my final attempt, I chose to manifest for her one last comestible, one far more plebeian than the prior delicacies and far more likely to be within her small circle of familiarity." He paused, gave a fastidious _harumph_ , and added, "I gave the kid a turkey leg. This she seized upon in the manner of a panther springing on a gazelle.

"And thus I won her over. With a tip of my hat to her erstwhile keeper _—_ the wielder of the knife, I mean _—_ I led the child away, keeping her well supplied with one meaty haunch after another, until I had returned to my abode. There I set about learning what I could of the child, but to woefully paltry avail. The girl spoke no English _—_ no, nor any other language save for grunts and snarls. For days on end I strove to tame her, through rewards, through punishments, through smiles and frowns, the proverbial carrots and sticks. Nothing! Nothing whatsoever broke through to her. Not a blessed thing, nor a cursed one either!"

"Not even food?" asked Jim. "That's how you lured her off in the first place."

"Hmph, _food!"_ rumbled the count dismissively. "That only distracted her. I wished to _captivate_ her, to make her tractable, obedient. She was already, as I had learned firsthand, the most natural weapon I had ever encountered. But I desired more from her _—_ much more! I desired for her to be _my_ weapon, a creature to whom I could say, 'Do this! Do that! Maim this man, kill that one!' You, ah, do understand, do you not, Mr West?" said the count, his face again wreathed in an evil smirk, one eyebrow riding high upon his forehead.

Jim glared back in response. "I'm beginning to."

"Excellent! I was sure you would," Manzeppi replied, his smile broadening. "For that, look you, is where _you_ come in."

"Me," Jim echoed, still glaring.

"Oh my, yes! I have such plans for you, my dear Mr West! Ariadne needs a trainer; who better than the inestimable James West? For, you see, if Ariadne is the most natural weapon I have ever encountered, you, dear sir, are a close second."

"Uh-huh," said Jim, just as the door opened and Melville came in dragging the count's other chair. "That being the case, I just have one question, Count."

"Only one?" Manzeppi stepped away from the first chair, waited for Melville to align the second at its side, then seated himself regally upon his double throne. "And what might that singular question be, Mr West?"

"You've told me a great deal about poor Ariadne, but you seem to have left out something."

Manzeppi arched a brow. "Ah? And that would be?"

Jim fixed him with a steady stare. "If that's how you came by Ariadne, then where did her twin sister Pearl come from?"

…

The reddening eastern horizon announced to Artie that dawn was well on its way, but the moon, low in the west _—_ and hadn't that been a gibbous moon earlier in the night? Artie wondered, for it certainly looked perfectly round now! _—_ still shed plenty of soft silvery light over the scene. Artie looked around, trying to spot Vi… Ah! There was movement by the stable around back of the house, and Jerome's draft horses were nickering in curiosity. No doubt that was where he would find Villar.

Before he could reach the stable, however, the door flew open in his face and Villar, scuttling out with his arms full, nearly plowed right into him.

"Hey!" yelped the ventriloquist. "Didn't I say not to follow me?"

"And you really thought that would stop me?" Artie countered. "What are you up to, anyway?"

"I… Well, that is, I, uh…" Villar's eyes flicked between the man confronting him and the almost setting moon. Muttering a soft but eloquent oath under his breath, he added, "All right, look. I don't have time for this. That moon's plumb full, and I can't wait for the next one. Here, help me!" To Artie's surprise, Villar jammed about half of what he was carrying _—_ the bulk of it tools, along with a few spare horseshoes _—_ into Artie's arms, then strode off across the yard to the area most brightly lit by the fading moonlight. There he dropped his load and swiftly spread it out so that no bit of it touched any of the rest. "Go ahead: help!" he ordered, and as Artie complied, a nasty suspicion gnawing at the edges of his mind, Villar hurried back to the stable.

Artie hurried over as well, once more nearly colliding with Villar in the doorway. "What are we doing?" Artie demanded. "What's that for?"

For now Villar was carrying one of the shovels Jerome kept in his stable, and carrying it with the broad blade level and held out at the full length of both handle and arm. Something small and white was resting within the shallow scoop of the blade, something Artie recognized though he'd only glimpsed it for barely a moment a few minutes earlier.

"Where are you taking this?" he asked, snapping up the tiny white pouch that had been hiding inside Julio's eye. He opened the pouch and dumped out what was inside, even as Villar yelped, "Don't do that! Don't touch it! Not while you're in the moonlight!" He made a grab for it, but Artie staved him off with one hand, peering closely at the thing that had dropped out into his other palm.

It looked, at first glance, like a marble. At second glance, however, it looked so perfectly black that it might well have been a hole sitting in the palm of his hand. And at third glance…

"Why, it's full of stars!" Artie breathed in amazement.

"Gimme that!" growled Villar. He yanked out his handkerchief, snatched the thing away, and deposited it once more into the scoop of the shovel, then glanced up at the sky. "Nearly out of moonlight!" he fretted, and took off scampering for the area where he'd scattered out the stuff.

Again Artie followed. Now he was sure he knew what was going on. And a moment later he was even more sure, for as Villar crossed the yard to reach the scattered junk, he gave a grunt and dropped the shovel.

Little wonder why: the shovel blade, previously a simple iron implement, was now gleaming gold!

Villar nearly shrieked, then hurriedly used the heavy golden shovel to push the little ball wrapped in the handkerchief closer to the stuff on the lawn _—_ all of it, Artie now saw, objects made out of iron or some other plain metal, among them the slug of the bullet he'd dug out of Villar's calf an hour or so back. And as the handkerchief was shoved farther along and wound up at last in the center of the scattered items, every single one of them began to shimmer in the moonlight with the sparkling glitter of gold.


	12. Act Three, Part Three

**Act Three, Part Three**

"Funny how that thing isn't resting at the bottom of the bay after all," Artie commented. "So how much else of that tale you told Jim and me two months ago was a lie, hmm?"

Villar hung well back from the edge of his amassment of gold, watching for the moon to set. "Only that," he said at last. "I, well, I wanted Manzeppi to think it was gone for good, gone where he could never get at it again."

"But instead it was hidden where _you_ could get at it any time you wanted, right?"

"It wasn't like that!"

Artie cocked an eyebrow at Villar. "No?"

"Well…" Sheepishly Villar dropped his eyes. "Not exactly like that, no. I figured there was a good chance Manzeppi would double-cross me one way or another _—_ which he did! Sent Ari… uh, You-know-who to snatch me off the street, took back from me the money he'd paid me _—_ as well as relieving me of the gold items I'd made for myself! _—_ then kept me cooped up in that blasted cage like some oversized parakeet the past two months while he kept questioning me, badgering me, refusing to believe I'd thrown it in the bay!"

Artie shook his head, a merry glint in his eye. "Wouldn't believe you'd thrown it away, huh? My, my, my, and when you have such an honest face!"

"Look, Mr Gordon, if you had had the thing, would _you_ have been able to throw it away?" Villar challenged. "Something that can give you all the money you could ever want, and all you have to do is set it out under the full moon!" He waved an arm at the rapidly disappeared silvery orb in the western sky, then winced and snatched his arm back.

"What's the matter, Villar?" said Artie with genuine concern. "What are you afraid of? Oh, and I keep telling you, it's Arte… Oh, whatever!"

"What am I afraid of? What do you _think_ I'm afraid of? I'm afraid of the same thing Manzeppi himself was afraid of, of course! Just think about it, Mr Gordon: I know you were there when Gerda ran out onto that rooftop with the Philosopher's Stone hidden in the toy chicken gripped in her hand. You heard her scream, right? You hurried up after her and found…"

Artie shuddered. Oh yes, he'd been there all right! He and Jim had burst through the door onto the roof, only to spot a full-sized golden effigy of Miss Gerda Sharff laid out on the floor, her derringer and the chicken right beside her, and both of them also as golden as could be. And over them stood Count Manzeppi, shaking his head mournfully, murmuring something about…

"Something about the condition of her soul, according to Manzeppi," Artie recalled. "Presumably that hers was as base as any lead or iron."

"Right," said Villar. "That's why I yelled at you when you grabbed the pouch off the shovel just now and opened it. What if the Philosopher's Stone had decided _you_ were as base as she was? Or me? You know that's why Manzeppi didn't try to recover the chicken for himself that night, not under the moonlight. If Gerda's soul was base enough for the Stone to act on her, how much more so the soul of a man who had long since sold his to the devil _—_ figuratively at the least, if not in actuality?"

"Then it was his doing that everything there _—_ Gerda, and toy chicken, and gun _—_ all exploded into gold leaf? I was never quite sure if he did that, or if for some reason the Philosopher's Stone did it."

"No, he did it. He told me so himself while he was paying me for the chicken with the fake Stone inside. He was sure you and Mr West would gather up every bit of the gold leaf, and he planned to come by some time later and confiscate it." He glanced at Artie. "Except that by the time he was able to go to your train to search for it _—_ he'd had to return to Yale first, I believe _—_ there was no sign of the gold leaf anymore."

"No. It disappeared one night and we never could find it either." Now it was his turn to glance at Villar. "But somehow you did!"

Villar cast his eyes toward what was left of the moon above the horizon before answering. "That was pure dumb luck. I was helping Jerome deliver his candies one morning, and when we got to a certain restaurant run by this little Italian lady, she was standing in the middle of the dining room with her apron thrown over her head having herself a good old-fashioned hissy fit. Her son Dominic was trying to calm her down, so Jerome and I tried to help too. And as we were doing that, she kept pointing at the front display window. Dominic couldn't figure out what was wrong; said she'd asked him to put up a nice friendly display the night before, so he'd hauled out a bunch of his old toys and set them up in the window. 'But look, _look!'_ the old lady kept crying.

"Dominic and Jerome were pulling her away to try to settle her at a table, so I went over by myself to have a look." Villar caught a deep breath and sighed it out again. "Well, all I can say is no wonder the poor lady was in such a panic! There in the window stood a bunch of toys, among them a set of tin soldiers _—_ except they weren't tin anymore; they were solid gold. And there in the window as well stood a certain little toy chicken…" He eyed Artie meaningfully.

"So you helped yourself to the chicken."

"So what if I did? I knew what it was; they didn't. And besides, it had just made them the gift of a couple of dozen golden soldiers. Can you imagine how much money that was? Dominic and his mama were set for life!"

"Whereas you…"

"Whereas I had a certain…" Villar smirked. "…bat fastard to make a little payback to."

"Yes, and _that_ worked out so well!"

Villar winced. "Unfortunately, that is all too true, Mr Gordon. Therefore I'm gonna take this stash I've made for myself just now and get out while the gettin's good!" He checked the western horizon once more. "Ok, the moon's gone. It should be safe now." He strode into the midst of the newly-minted treasure and began sorting through the items, putting some into one pile, the rest into another.

Once again curiosity prompted Artie to follow. "Now what are you doing?" he asked.

Villar gestured at the pile in which Artie could see the portrait of Jerome's wife, now encased in a golden frame. "If you don't mind, would you take these back to the house for Jerome? I owe him an awful lot for his hospitality on and off over an awful lot of years. At least _he_ should get a proper payback!"

" _Me_ take them in?" Artie protested. "And where will you be?"

"Where else? On the run!" Villar went back into the stable and emerged this time with a wheelbarrow, into which he gathered the rest of the hoard. "No braggadocio this time, Mr Gordon. I'm outta here for good! Tell Jerome I said, 'Thanks for everything.'"

"Including that wheelbarrow?"

Villar paused, then laughed nervously. "Yes, including that. Oh, and here!"

He held out his hand and Artie took it, expecting a handshake in farewell. What he got was more than that, for when Villar released his hand, he left in it that white handkerchief. And through the cloth Artie could feel a small hard round lump within.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Make better choices than I did, I hope," Villar replied, and before Artie could protest further, the ventriloquist added, "Goodbye, Mr Go… I mean, goodbye, Artemus," and away Villar limped into the light of a glorious dawn, trundling the wheelbarrow before him.

Artie stared at the cloth, then peeled it back for another look at the Philosopher's Stone. "Hoo boy," he muttered. "Well, I suppose Villar left you with Jerome and Julio in the first place because, as he himself said, what Jerome didn't know about, Manzeppi couldn't go after him over. And I suppose the same is still true. So back into Julio's eye goes you!" He wrapped the handkerchief around the Stone securely and stuffed it into a pocket, then set out to gather up the remainder of the hoard of gold to try to sneak it into the house without Jerome noticing.

…

Manzeppi cast a glance at his minion, standing there listening in on the conversation. "Melville!" he ordered instantly. "Go at once and bring me the televox!"

Melville frowned. "Uh… tele-what?"

"The televox, my good man! It's in my workroom. The metal box roughly the size of a breadbox, and with a crank on one side. You've seen it, surely."

The minion's brow beetled. "Boss, my name's Melville!" he protested before scurrying from the boudoir on his latest errand to fetch and carry for his boss.

Manzeppi waited until he heard the door into the workroom both open and close again before addressing his captive once more. "You were saying, Mr West?"

Jim nodded his head after the departed Melville. "He doesn't know, does he?"

"Doesn't know?" The count's eyes opened wide in badly faked artlessness. "Why, whatever do you mean, Mr West?"

"I mean," Jim replied, "that Melville doesn't realize that there _is_ no Pearl Peznam."

"No Pearl!" Manzeppi gaped. "But how can you say that! You've met her yourself, conversed with her," and with a glint in his eye added, "bussed the dear girl as well, I've no doubt."

Jim glanced up to view the ceiling through the bars of his charming cage. "Iridescent Pearl Peznam. It struck us from the first, Mr Gordon and me, what an unusual name that was. But now I see how familiar it is as well, especially if you reduce the given names to initials, then spell the whole thing backwards. I P Peznam becomes Manzep P I. And the only way she could bear a name like that is if _you_ had bestowed it upon her."

Manzeppi smirked and puffed on his cigar. "Go on."

"As I was talking with her, she spoke of her very first memory from when she was six or seven. A memory of you, calling her by name and promising help to Ariadne, but saying that for now, her twin would have to be locked away. Pearl thought, and still thinks, that you meant locked up in this room, but that's not the case at all. Ariadne is locked away inside Pearl's head _—_ their shared head. You couldn't tame Ariadne, so you hypnotized her, locking the real girl away while you created a new personality for her, one who was tractable, obedient, captivated. You invented Pearl, sent her off to the finest boarding schools, lavished on her expensive clothing and anything else she wanted, all the while promising her that one day her sister would be cured. But what exactly do you mean by _cured_ , Count? And when do you plan to ever tell Pearl the truth about herself and her so-called twin?"

At that moment Manzeppi flung up a hand, warning West to silence. For, as they both heard, the workroom door had just opened. And now here came Melville, burdened under a large box with a crank on the side. "Here you go, Boss!" he cried and made to dump the contraption on the pretty pink vanity table.

"More of this anon," murmured Manzeppi to his prisoner, then turned his attention to the minion. "No, not there, Melville! Take it over there instead." He waved at the chair in the corner upon which was propped the life-sized doll. A swift frown of disappointment at not being able to set down the heavy thing quite yet crossed Melville's face, but he did as he was bid.

Manzeppi, with a grin towards West and a promise of, "You're going to love this," got up and followed Melville and the televox. The count opened the top of the televox and lifted out a rod of metal about a foot long and surmounted by a flat round piece of metal mesh. This curious contrivance _—_ it looked uncannily like a metal lollipop _—_ was attached to the rest of the contraption by means of a long thick wire. Smirking proudly, Manzeppi lifted out more wires from the televox and clipped them to the big pink doll. He then directed Melville to "Crank. And don't stop cranking until I tell you to."

Melville complied. As he turned the crank around and around, Manzeppi waved a hand at the metal lollipop, and as the sound of _zhing!_ echoed in the room, the count aligned its metal mesh before his mouth, cleared his throat, then declaimed, "Villar! Are you there?"


	13. Act Three, Part Four

**Act Three, Part Four**

So how hard could it be, Artie wondered as he headed for the house with his arms full of the gold items Villar had left for Jerome, to sneak these things inside past a blind man?

The answer nearly smacked him in the face when the door was flung open just as he reached it. "Frank!" Jerome called out frantically. "Frank, where are you?"

"Just about as easy as sneaking dawn past a rooster, so it seems," Artie muttered under his breath before responding more loudly with "I'm sorry, Jerome, but Frank's not here."

"Not here!" The blind man stood full in the doorway gaping at Artie, completely blocking his way. "But… but where is he? I need him! I need him _now!"_ he said, and Artie caught the note of pure panic in the man's voice.

"You… Why? What's happened?" he asked sharply. To his great relief, Jerome whirled and led the way into the house. Artie followed, managing to drop off items here and there as he went, trying not to be too obvious about it.

"It's Julio; he's gone berserk!" said Jerome. He pointed a shaking finger in the direction of the puppet's usual chair.

"Julio!" Artie set the final item, the photograph of Roseanne Fox, on the mantelpiece, then started towards Villar's old ventriloquist's prop. "But he's only a piece of wood; how can he possibly go b…?"

Again Artie got an immediate answer, for as he drew near the dummy, its head turned all on its own to face him, and its jaw moved of itself, open and shut, open and shut, in time to the words:

"Villar! Are you there?"

…

The doll in the corner of Ariadne's boudoir, so it seemed, was in fact a very large marionette, for its jaw opened and closed, opened and closed, in rhythm with Manzeppi's voice. The count shot a glance towards the captive in the cage and bobbed his eyebrows in glee, then turned back to continue the message his televox machine was transmitting for him.

…

Artie's eyebrows shot up like skyrockets. "That's Count Manzeppi's voice!" he hissed. Instantly he whirled, looking in all directions. Was Villar's bat fastard here?

"Villar," said the voice, the puppet's jaw moving in perfect rhythm with the words, "you have one opportunity and one only: return that which you stole from me, and I shall forgive you. Forgive, I say _—_ but never forget! Nor shall I permit you to go unpunished. Friends do not steal from one another, do they? Return the precious bauble forthwith, before the setting of this day's sun, and your punishment will be light, I promise you. Allow the sun to go down on my anger, however, and your punishment will be… unimaginable. That also I promise you!"

Jerome sidled up to Artie and whispered in his ear, "He keeps saying that! That's the second time he's gone through that entire spiel. But who is it? What does he want? And where's Frank?"

Artie lifted a hand to shush him, realized the visual signal was lost on Jerome, and pressed a silencing finger to his host's mouth. "I'll explain later," he murmured, his eyes locked on the dummy as he tried to ignore the chill running along his spine.

"You know where to come," Manzeppi's voice continued. "You have until sunset. Do not presume to try my patience, Villar. You of all people know all too well that I have neither patience nor mercy towards those who betray me. Need I sign this? You have been summoned by Count Carlos Maria Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi!"

At that pronouncement the puppet's jaw snapped shut with a _clack_ and its head turned again to face the ceiling above it. Artie looked over at a supremely shaken Jerome; the poor fellow was standing there with each hand gripping the opposite upper arm, his knuckles white with the effort.

Then the blind's man chin came up and he said decidedly, "Ok, that's _it!_ I know I asked Frank to leave Julio with me on the off chance that one day he'd change his mind and want to do his ventriloquist act again, but I have _had_ it! If he wants to work with a dummy again, it'll just have to be another dummy!" And with that he stormed across the room, grabbed up Julio, and tore the hapless mannequin limb from limb, tossing each rent portion into the hearth to smolder in the flames.

Artie's hand stole into his pocket and fingered the little item wrapped in Villar's handkerchief. So much for secreting the Philosopher's Stone inside Julio ever again! He'd need to come up with another plan.

Jerome, having disposed of the entire dummy, pressed his hands over his face for a long moment. Then he spoke again, his voice emerging from below the hands. "I suppose Frank gave you no idea where he's going?"

"None," said Artie truthfully. "Just away. Well, away from the guy who just sent him that message, that is. Ah, and he said to thank you for your hospitality."

"Oh, that's no problem. Any time, any time," said Jerome, seeming at last to recover himself. He puttered around the room, tidying up again. "I suppose that's the fellow Frank used to work for? The guy he hates with all his heart?"

For a split second Artie wondered which way Jerome meant that last question, with Villar hating Manzeppi or Manzeppi Villar, before deciding that either way fit admirably. "Yes, that was Manzeppi," he replied.

"Ah. And did Frank take the dingus with him?"

That question caught Artie by surprise. "Uh… dingus?"

"Yes, the thingy. The whatever-it-is his old, dearly despised boss is looking for. Do you know that this place has been searched _three times_ already? And that's only in the past two months!" He shook his head. "Whatever that thing is, somebody wants it _very_ badly indeed!"

Again Artie fingered the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket. "They searched your house? How do you know?"

Jerome smiled. "It's my house. I just know when something's amiss here. I can feel it… Hey, I can practically _hear_ it! Frank hid something somewhere, and someone thought perhaps that somewhere was here. Thank goodness it wasn't," he added, straightening the photo on the mantelpiece. "But wherever Frank put it, I hope he gets things settled with his old boss pretty soon now so they can start leaving me _out_ of all these shenanigans, thank you very much!" With a nod of satisfaction at the neatness of his home, Jerome headed for the kitchen.

In the living room, Artie ruminated over the whole matter for a while, then followed his host into the next room. "Tell me, Jerome," he said, "is there any way you can change the formula of that hangover remedy to get a specific color other than purple?"

"Other than purple?" Jerome repeated, frowning as he puzzled over the question. "Why, I don't know; I've never tried… Hmm… Ok, tell me: what color did you have in mind?"

…

"There! That's the message delivered," said Manzeppi with satisfaction. "For surely two iterations will suffice. You may stop cranking now, Melville, and return the televox to my workroom."

The minion halted immediately and shook his arm to work the kinks out of it. "Lift and carry, lift and carry," he muttered under his breath as he packed away the device's various wires. "And for a second there I thought he got my name wrong again! When he had me stay here with him, I thought I was going to get to deal with West, not be a gol-durned errand boy! Kinda wish now he'd sent me off with my brothers _—_ wherever they wound up." Still muttering, Melville lugged the heavy contraption back out the door.

Manzeppi cocked an eyebrow as his minion left the room, waited as he had done previously until he heard the workroom door close, then turned his attention once more to the captive in the cage. "And now, Mr West," said the count as he resumed his seat upon the two chairs, "you were saying?"

"I was asking you when you plan to ever let Pearl in on the secret of her twin sister, the secret that there _is_ no twin sister but only a hidden part of her own psyche. And in fact, that the Pearl she knows herself to be is merely a construct of your making. She's nothing but a windup doll of your own design, a way of marking time until you can… can what, turn Pearl into the perfect natural weapon as well? Or somehow break through to Ariadne and turn her into the perfect compliant niece Pearl is? You'd have your hands full bringing about either transformation, I can tell you that. I can also tell you that I absolutely will not help you train Ariadne in any way."

"You think so?" purred Manzeppi, an evil twinkle in his eye. "Then behold!" With a _zhing!_ he flung up a hand and gestured at the pretty pink vanity. Its mirror instantly shimmered into wavering spangles of yellow, black, and white. Frowning at the undulating mishmash of rippling swirls, the count waggled his fingers at the mirror, then wiggled his nose as well.

Abruptly the confusion of colors cleared, revealing a street scene somewhere out there in the city. A quaint little house stood front and center in the mirror's image, a stable in view behind the house. And waiting alongside the stable were a pair of men Jim recognized immediately as the Elmers. Curiously they were in less than pristine condition, their clothing more rumpled and torn than Jim remembered from their recent clashes, with one Elmer sporting a black eye and the other evidence of a freshly bloodied nose.

Jim shot a glance at the count just in time to spot a black look washing over his face. "Ruffians!" the count muttered to himself. "One would think that brothers would know better than to fight between themselves. It's appalling how hard it is to get good help these days!" But then, feeling his prisoner's eyes upon him, Manzeppi lifted his chins and smirked. "I suppose you know why they are there, Mr West," he commented.

"Why they're there?" Jim responded. "I don't even know where they are."

"Do you not? Then observe, Mr West! Observe and see what shall shortly come to past…" At this point the great man's shoulders began to jiggle as a chuckle rumbled forth from the count. "Yes, and as it unfolds, you shall see with your own eyes why you will do all my bidding and train Ariadne for me. For if you do not, I assure you that your great good friend Mr Gordon…" and here Manzeppi turned to fix his wicked eyes upon his unwilling guest, "…shall certainly die."

 **End of Act Three**


	14. Act Four, Part One

**Act Four, Part One**

 _Author's note: those of you who are familiar with Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld will know that the word Artie is about to be searching for is_ knurd _. (And believe me, folks, I as the author sure wished I could simply have invoked it!)_

"Here you are, Artemus. I hope this formulation does what you want it to," said Jerome, emerging from the kitchen with a stoppered bottle in hand.

Artie, now dressed in some of the clothing Villar had left behind _—_ and what a task it had been, finding anything that had belonged to the ventriloquist that Artie could squeeze himself into! _—_ accepted the bottle with thanks. He pulled out the stopper, took a cautious whiff of the contents, then lifted the bottle high and peered at the liquid within. "As long as this stuff turns me temporarily brown instead of purple, that's exactly what I want. So here goes nothing!" And he drained the bottle.

"Wait, _what?"_ cried Jerome. "You can't drink that; you're not drunk!"

"I'm not using it to sober up; I want to… _Yow!"_ As with Villar before him, so now Artie's eyes did their level best to start from their sockets. He lost his balance and sat down abruptly, grateful that the sofa just happened to be behind him. "I… I… yikes!" he exclaimed.

"Artemus? Are you all right?"

That was a good question, and Artie wasn't entirely sure of the answer. Drunkenness was a familiar condition for him _—_ as of course was sobriety _—_ but what he felt now was… was… well, it was a sensation he'd never felt before, one he doubted if anyone else on the face of the earth had ever felt! His mind raced to quantify the experience, to put it all into words. In fact, he wasn't sure but an entirely new word was required to encapsulate it.

"What's the far other side of sober from drunk?" he muttered to Jerome. "Because that's how I am. If you place 'soused' at the bottom of a river valley with 'sober' on top of a mountain peak, then where I am must surely be somewhere up in the stratosphere!"

"That good, huh?"

"Good? I don't think 'good' exactly captures it. I do seem to be turning brown, at least," he added, examining his hands. "But I'm thinking now that maybe I should have started off with a shot or three of whiskey before I took your concoction. And I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't be a good idea to go ahead and have those shots right now, just to take the edge off."

"Oh? Well, if you're sure, I've got a bottle in the kitchen. I could…"

Jerome fell silent as Artie laid a hand on his arm. "Shh," he hissed. "You hear that?"

Jerome listened, then shook his head. "Hear what?" he hissed back.

Artie listened a bit longer. "Somebody's out there. No, two somebodies. They're over by the stable. You can't hear the horses nickering?"

"From this distance? I know people say the hearing of the blind is far sharper than that of the sighted, but even I can't hear my horses out in the stable, Artemus."

"You can't? Well, I guess that's an effect of being hyper-sober, because I can!" Artie glanced around the room, his eye falling on a stack of boxes near the door, each box labeled… "Gobstoppers? Are those what I think they are: jawbreakers?"

"Yes, a delivery I'm supposed to make tomorrow. The customer's British and likes me to call them that. Why?"

A slow smile spread across Artie's face and he snapped his fingers. "I've got an idea. But I need to keep you in the dark about what I'm about to do, just in case those two employees of Villar's old boss out there decide to bust in and search the place again."

Jerome gave a chuckle. "Keep me in the dark, is it? That's not a problem: I'm always in the dark anyhow!" And with that the candy man disappeared into his bedroom and locked the door.

…

One Elmer nudged the other in the ribs as the door to the little house opened and shut again. "There's one of 'em!" he hissed.

True, a solitary figure had emerged into the yard and was hurrying even now straight toward the stable where the pair of Elmers awaited. "Where's the other, though?"

"I dunno, but we'll grab that one at least and haul 'im back to the boss. Get ready!"

"Yeah but, Elmer, what about the other? I say we grab this one, then search the house for the other."

"Who died and left you in charge? I say we grab this one and take 'im to the boss!"

"Who died? It's your brain that died, Elmer! I say we search the house for the other, 'cause the boss said to bring both of 'em back!"

"Both of whom?" came a new voice, albeit a familiar one. The Elmers whirled to see that the man from the house had arrived. He was a familiar figure, all right, with a big brushy mustache and very dark skin.

"That's Villar! Get 'im!" cried out both Elmers as they pounced on the man before them, quickly subduing him.

"All right, where's Gordon?" demanded one of the Elmers.

"I… I don't know!" cried their prisoner. "I swear I don't! He left maybe half an hour ago. Honest! Don't… don't hurt me anymore!" He cringed before them, arms wrapped over his head.

"Ok, see? Gordon's gone. We'll take Villar back to the boss and…"

"And you think you're the smart Elmer? You just gonna _believe him?_ C'mon, we gotta search the house!"

Suddenly from the direction of a house beyond the stable came the voice of a woman crying out, "Oh, Officer! I'm so glad to see you! There's been a terrible racket next door. I thought I saw a couple of men attacking someone out by the stable there! If you hurry you might catch them!"

This was followed by a man's voice saying, "All right, ma'am. We'll see about it. C'mon, men!"

"Let's get out of here!" hissed both Elmers. They grabbed up their captive and hustled him out of the yard, little guessing that Villar wasn't the only practitioner of ventriloquism they had ever met.

For his part, Artie hid a smile to himself and let the Elmers bear him away.

…

"Bah!" exclaimed Count Manzeppi and waved an arm at the vanity, erasing the images of the Elmers and their prisoner and restoring the mirror to its usual more prosaic function. "Why did they content themselves to only capture one of the two men I sent them after? And why did they suddenly bolt in such a craven fashion?"

"You might know if that mirror had transmitted sound as well instead of only showing us visuals," Jim commented, adding, "I don't suppose it's ever occurred to you to combine the mirror trick with the televox, has it? Then you'd be able to hear what's happening along with seeing it."

"Bah!" the count reiterated. "I weary of your airy persiflage, Mr West! Have you ever slaved over an innovative new invention? Or else labored to conceive of an original manifestation of magic? I think not, sir! So kindly keep your paltry notions to yourself and leave the generation of unheard-of new creations to the experts!"

Jim cocked an eyebrow. "Experts such as yourself, you mean?"

"Indubitably!"

"And such as my partner Mr Gordon as well, of course," Jim added.

"Bah!" came the count's opinion once again. "With Mr Gordon still on the loose out there and only Villar being returned… but of course I do want Villar returned…" he continued on, murmuring musingly to himself. "That was one of the points of permitting Mr Gordon to spirit him away, so that he would naturally go to lay his hands on the item I so desperately want back in my own hands…"

"You mean you let Villar go on the presumption that he'd immediately retrieve the Philosopher's Stone? But he told us he'd thrown it into San Francisco Bay."

The count rounded on him. "And you believed him? Throw away the most valuable treasure the world has ever known? Impossible! Inconceivable! Not even someone of such implausibly stringent rectitude as your ilk would commit a ridiculous act of that caliber! No no, I assure you: Villar lied about the disposition of the Philosopher's Stone and has now reacquired it in order to use it to create more gold _—_ only to find the sun has already arisen on this month's full moon. And ere the sun sets this day and that silvery orb arises once more, Villar will be naught but an unhappy memory." Manzeppi smiled at that thought, then glanced at his prisoner. "And the same will be true of Mr Gordon, unless you consent to act as Ariadne's trainer."

"Fat chance, Manzeppi," Jim retorted. "With emphasis on the fat."

Fury blazed from the great man's eyes. "Ah? Ah, and that is your answer for me, is it then? You shall rue your impertinence, sir! If you will not train her of your own free will, then _un_ willingly will have to suffice _—_ in which case you shall undoubtedly die at her fair hands! Melville! _Melville!"_ The count went to the door roaring out his minion's name.

"Yeah, Boss?" The man came running from the workroom.

"Go and fetch Ariadne at once. She has a… training session with her new tutor."

"M-m-me? Go fetch Ari… _her?"_ Melville gibbered.

"Oh, just go get her! And may I remind you that if you fear her, you ought of a certainty to fear me all the more!" He loomed over the minion and raised a hand preparatory to committing some new act of degradation.

"Y-y-yes, Boss! R-right away!" Melville babbled and hurried across the hall to Pearl's room.

Manzeppi, satisfied, turned a smirk towards the prisoner in the birdcage, made a sweeping bow, and purred, "As ever, Mr West: enjoy!"

"Boss!"

"Hmm? Oh, what is it now, Melville?"

"It's Ari… I mean, the crazy girl, Boss. She's missing!"

"Missing!" Count Manzeppi roared. With a belligerent scowl upon his face, the count shoved Melville out of his way and stormed across the hall to his young ward's room. "By all the fires of Hades, how could she be mi… Melville you idiot, she's not missing at all; she's right there sleeping in the bed!"

"But, but that's Miss Pearl, Boss! _She's_ there ok, but the other one's gone, and who knows where she is or what she'll do?" The minion cast his eyes in all directions, plainly afraid of being attacked from any quarter by the dangerous Ariadne.

"Fool! She isn't about to spring upon you; she's… Bah!" the count grunted, turning to glare at the cringing Melville. Then, with a chuckle, he added, "On second thought, my good man, instead of bringing Mohammed to the mountain, let us convey the mountain to Mohammed!"

The minion frowned. "Uh… what?"

"Ah, Melville, the dizzying heights to which your intellect towers ever astound me! My meaning is quite simple: go back to the other room and roll our guest over here forthwith."

Melville's frown deepened. "Roll him?"

Manzeppi sighed. "The stand from which the birdcage depends is supplied with casters, as you may _—_ or perhaps may not _—_ have noticed. Go and trundle Mr West on over here, there's a good fellow." And as Melville, still frowning, made his uncertain way back across the hall, the count leaned over his sleeping ward, took her hand in his, and began tracing a lazy figure eight on her hand with his thumb, his voice murmuring softly, "As our Mr West will no doubt expect the real girl to emerge only after the third repetition of your name, my dear, I now command you: you will henceforth awaken the _first_ time you hear your name! And you will…"

From the opposite doorway came a yelp of "Boss!" as Melville scampered back across the hall. Manzeppi, startled, dropped the girl's hand and growled out, "Oh, what is it now?"

The minion, eyes wide, pointed frantically back at the other bedroom. "It's West, Boss! Now _he's_ missing!"

" _What!"_ exclaimed the malevolent magician. With a sulfurous oath, he stormed back across the hallway, took a single look at the abandoned birdcage with its door swinging open and its lock blasted and ruined, then rounded on Melville yet again. "He cannot possibly have gotten very far, not in the brief time he was alone. Find him! Find him at once!"

"Yeah, Boss!"

"And when you do," Manzeppi added, an evil smirk twisting his features, "we shall no longer merely toy with our infuriating Mr West, but shall feed him to the lion!"

Melville paused partway into the workroom. "Lion? Did I, uh, miss something?"

"Only a properly working brain, Melville! By 'lion' I mean none other than our lovely little savage, of course!"

"Yeah? But, Boss, she's missing too, remember?"

Steam all but spewed from the great man's ears at the fiery glare he leveled at his minion. "Missing! _Missing!"_ he roared. "If I hear that word one more time, it shall be _you_ that will be missing, you imbecile! Now go and find Mr West before he can get away!"

"Yeah, Boss!" The minion bolted into the workroom and slammed the door behind him, even as Manzeppi turned once again to survey the empty cage, as well as the empty room within which it stood. "Before he can get away," the count quoted softly to himself. "I wonder…" He glanced at the mirror, raised a hand as if to enchant it once more, then shook his head and waved that thought away. "I wonder indeed," he murmured again, then turned on his heel and followed Melville into the workroom.

…

Jim West was currently glad of three things. The first was that, when Melville had burst in with the news that Ariadne was missing, Manzeppi had rushed out after the minion, leaving his captive momentarily unattended. The second was that the guileful count had apparently never realized that the heels of Jim's boots were hollow, so that while the paraphernalia hidden in the rest of Jim's clothing had apparently been confiscated during his interval of unconsciousness, the blob of explosive putty in the one heel and the fuse and matches in the other had still been available to him.

And the third? That was the fact that the life-size doll on the chair in the corner of Ariadne's room was every bit big enough for him to hide behind. Jim watched and waited as Melville wandered in, then hurried out again to fetch Manzeppi back with him, and the hidden agent continued to wait as the great man sent forth his minion to search for the decamped captive. Jim listened in on his host's remarks about feeding him to the lion-like wildcat of a girl, as well as to Manzeppi's later private musings to himself. But what, in fact, did the count mean by, "I wonder… I wonder indeed"? That might be useful for Jim to know. Not that he was likely to find out. Or rather, he realized, he probably wouldn't find out until it was too late for the knowledge to do him any good.

In the meantime, he did a quick inventory to see if Manzeppi might have neglected to remove any other of his useful little hidden gadgets. Jim already knew that his sleeve gun, collar knife, and lock pick had all been taken from him during his involuntary siesta _—_ yes, even the exploding buttons from his vest had been clipped away! Nor did he have any of Pearl's keys which he'd pocketed earlier either. All he had left now, he found, were his native wits, charm, and good looks _—_ and he had no doubt but if Artie were to hear him come up with that particular list, he'd gleefully point out that all those things plus a nickel would get Jim a cup of coffee.

Artie. Jim shook his head. He sure hoped his partner was ok!

He listened carefully now, thinking it was entirely possible that Manzeppi had only pretended to follow Melville into the workroom. Hearing the great man bellowing at the minion from beyond that closed door however, Jim slipped out of his impromptu hiding place and headed for what he hoped might prove to be the only port in this particular storm.

…

"Melville, he cannot possibly be hiding in there!" bellowed the great man.

"Yeah, you sure about that, Boss? He's a tricky one, he is!"

"Tricky as our Mr West may be, my dear fellow, even he lacks the expertise to conceal himself within the stricture of such a compact sphere! Not only is its diameter roughly twenty-four inches, giving us a volume of not more than four-thirds pi cubic feet, but there's no opening in its side by which he could get in _—_ no, nor for him to emerge from it again afterwards if ever he had managed to enter. _And pray do not destroy my beautiful world globe in trying to prove me wrong!"_

Slowly, sheepishly, Melville set the globe back into its round brass stand. Even if he hadn't believed what his boss was saying, the fact that he'd been able to pick up the globe at all showed him it was too light for there to be anyone hiding inside it. Well, where else to look?

A hammering at the front door of the lecture hall caught their attention. "Who could that be?" Melville grumbled.

"Who indeed?" echoed Manzeppi. "Your brothers could hardly have returned from collecting Villar so quickly. Although… Hmm. Hm-hm!" The great man began to chuckle. "Ah, but they did not find Mr Gordon on their excursion, _n'est-ce pas?_ No doubt it is he at the door, dressed in some all too clever disguise, ready to extract his partner from certain doom!" He smirked and bobbed an eyebrow. "Therefore let us forth to meet him, Melville, all the better to entrap _both_ partners in that selfsame doom of certitude!" And as the minion rolled his eyes at the purpleness of his boss' poesy, Manzeppi swept from the workroom to go capture for himself a second Federal agent.


	15. Act Four, Part Two

**Act Four, Part Two**

Jim slipped across the hall into the open door of the opposite bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Every pink inch of the room was the mirror image of Ariadne's room, right down to the large doll propped up on the chair in the corner _—_ though lacking, Jim noted, the outsized birdcage _—_ but his main focus at the moment was the girl sound asleep on the bed. He strode quietly to her side, leaned close, and whispered, "Pearl!"

Instantly her eyes snapped open. She blinked several times and looked all around, plainly puzzled. "What…" she faltered. "What happened? How did I get here? I…" She looked up at Jim, then accepted his hand that he might help her sit up. "The last thing I remember is standing in the hallway as you entered my sister's room. Did you…?" An eager, wistful look swept over her pretty face. "Did you find her? Did you talk to her?"

"Find her, yes. Talk, no. Pearl, do you have any inkling what your uncle has been up to all these years?" he asked as he seated himself at her side.

"Up… up to? Why, he's a professor of Mediaeval History at Yale, of course. What else could he have been doing?"

"So you know nothing of Count Manzeppi?" Jim watched her closely.

Her brows knit. "Count… who?" Her bafflement seemed unfeigned.

"He's an accomplished magician and a criminal mastermind," said Jim. "Count Carlos Maria Vincenzo Robespierre Manzeppi. And you've never heard of him?"

"With a name like that? Surely I'd remember!"

"Consider this then: spell the name Manzeppi, then spell your own name backwards."

She frowned as she complied, then gasped. "But, but how peculiar!"

"Tell me about it! And your uncle: he does magic, doesn't he?"

"Why, yes, at parties and in special performances. Charity events, fundraisers, that sort of thing. But… I don't understand. Why are you asking me such strange questions?"

"Because it happens that Count Manzeppi and your uncle are one and the same." And as she gaped and began to protest, Jim raised a hand and added, "And so are you and your sister. You don't have a twin; you _are_ your own twin."

"What? No! No, that's not possible!"

"Isn't it? Your first memory is of your uncle speaking to you, calling you Iridescent Pearl Peznam, telling you he would have to keep your sister locked away. But she's locked away _here."_ Jim tapped her forehead. "The separate bedrooms and the injunction to never speak her name are just trickery to keep you from guessing at the truth. But the reality is that he couldn't control your original self, so he hypnotized you into believing you're a separate person, albeit a person he invented. The simple truth, Pearl," and here he caught her hand even as her protests grew still more vehement, "is that you _are_ Ariadne."

With a snarl she snatched her hand out of his and tried to claw his eyes out.

…

From thin air Count Manzeppi plucked forth a magic wand, then nodded at Melville who was standing at the ready. Immediately the minion yanked the outside door open, then ducked as the count cried out a foul phrase that sent a swirl of vermilion smoke spewing out the open door to enmesh whoever might stand beyond it.

"Hey!" yelped one voice, followed a heartbeat later by a second one complaining, "Aw, c'mon, Boss! What'd we do now?"

The smoke cleared to reveal three men on the doorstep, all of them ensnared within a sturdy vermilion net. Two of them were plainly the Elmers, while the third…

" _Who_ ," demanded Count Manzeppi, "is _that?"_

"Well, it's Villar, of course!" said one Elmer, even as the other chimed in with, "C'mon, Boss, let us loose!"

Manzeppi glared at the trio, then waved a hand. And as the sound of _zhing!_ filled the air _— poof! —_ the netting disappeared from two out of the three. Still glaring at the bound man among the group on the doorstep, the count inquired sternly, "And how is it that you have returned so quickly from your errand?"

"Oh, we took a cab," replied one Elmer, waving a hand at a carriage parked outside the building.

"Yeah, literally! The cabbie's still tied up inside it. Just a sec." This Elmer ran back down the stairs, gave a holler, and swatted the cab horse on its broad flank, sending the horse galloping off in a fright, the hack bounding along after it.

Manzeppi's nostrils flared. "Get in here, you buffoon! Do you want to attract the attention of the entire street?" He hauled his minions with their captive into the lecture hall and slammed the door behind them.

"Now!" he continued, arms folded, eyebrows arching with skepticism. "Explain to me how _this man_ is Villar!"

The Elmers gaped at him. "Well, of _course_ he's Villar!"

"He's who you sent us out to get, ain't he?"

"We didn't have time to get Gordon as well."

"Yeah, some nosy old bird was siccin' the police on us. We had to get outta there fast!"

"But we got _him_ , at least, just like you told us."

"Indeed?" Manzeppi sneered. "Then if this is truly the Villar we all know so well, explain to me this uncanny enigma: how is it that his skin…" and here he seized the captive and spun him around so that all three minions could have a good look at him, "…is _green?"_

"Green!" That word exploded from not three but four pairs of lips, for the captive himself cried it out, then raised his hands as best he could to have a look for himself. "But I was _brown_ before; I know I was! When did I turn green?"

"It would seem, my dear sir," Count Manzeppi purred, suddenly in high good humor, "that whatever ruse you had planned to perpetrate against me has backfired disastrously. Wouldn't you agree, _Mr Gordon?"_ And so saying, the count spun the captive back and yanked the brushy mustache right off Artie's lip.

…

It was only Jim's usual unusually fast reflexes that saved him from a mauling. At the first snarl from the girl's lips, he flung himself sideways off the edge of the bed, rolled, and came to his feet again just as Ariadne heaved the bedsheets aside and launched herself after him.

Jim snatched up the nearest defensive weapon at hand _—_ the chair from the vanity table _—_ to ward her off. And if the aptness of him using a chair against a girl Manzeppi had characterized as a lion came into his mind, he ignored it. "Ariadne!" he said sternly. "I'm trying to help you!"

She only gnashed her teeth in reply, seized a weapon of her own, and hurled it at him.

Jim ducked to the side and let the porcelain pitcher sail on past to shatter against the wall. "Stop it, Ariadne!"

Now the basin came hurtling his way as well. Again he ducked, dodging it as well as all the rest of the items, large and small, that the girl flung at him. "Ariadne, give it up!" he ordered, glad at least that this time the fight was taking place in a well-lit room so that he could see what she was up to.

As if reading his mind, she paused with a silver-framed hand mirror clutched in her fist, glowered at Jim, then turned and launched the shiny object at the lamp fixture mounted on the wall.

 _Crash!_ Instantly the room was plunged into darkness.

…

"Why, what a pleasant surprise, Mr Gordon!" Manzeppi chortled at his latest captive. "I had anticipated your reappearance in some unexpected disguise, but this one does indeed take the proverbial cake! However," and suddenly his merriment gave way to a fearsome scowl, "now that it is manifest that the truant my men failed to bring back is not you but Villar," and he brandished the magic wand in his hand at the netted agent, "where is he?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Artie snapped back.

"Oh, very clever riposte, Mr Gordon. Very apt, very concise. In fact, I _would_ like to know _— which is why I asked!"_ He loomed over Artie, eyes flashing, wand poised to wave and unleash upon his prisoner some unimaginable doom.

The minions, lacking the arcane firepower of their boss, made do with their far more prosaic munitions: they drew their guns.

"Um…" Artie eyed the four men menacing him, gulped, and said, "Uh, well… ok. Ok, I'll, uh… I'll tell you where Villar is. He's… _Great Scott, what's that?"_

…

The second the lights went out, Jim dropped the chair and threw himself to the floor several feet off to one side, in full expectation that the girl would…

Yep. He heard her snarl in the dark as she launched herself toward where he'd been standing. The next sound he heard was her tripping over the chair. He bounded to his feet and flung himself on her, wrapping his arms around her, immobilizing her. "Ariadne, we've got to get out of here! Can you hear that hissing sound? You've broken the gas lamps and now the gas will be filling the room. It'll asphyxiate us both unless we get out right aw… _oof!"_

Somehow during his speech she had managed to squirm an arm loose enough to now slam her elbow into his midriff. As Jim tried to gasp some air back into his lungs, the girl shoved him aside, scrambled to her feet, then kicked him in the same spot her elbow had just found, knocking the rest of the air out of him to boot.

Jim rolled into a severely underoxygenated ball, glad at least that the girl was barefoot as she continued to pummel him with kicks. Not only did her lack of shoes make the blows along his back less forceful than they might otherwise have been, but this style of fighting was just slightly easier on him _—_ considering that she could only hit him with one foot at a time without falling over. And so Jim lay gasping for a few moments longer, gauging the rhythm of her kicks as he waited for his pulmonary system to recover…

And… _now_.

Jim grabbed the foot just as it was about to ram into him and gave a twist. He heard a gasp of surprise, followed by a _thump_ as she landed right next to him. "All right, young lady," he growled as he sprang up and caught hold of her once more, "I don't like to do this, but we are getting out of here, and we are getting out right now." He hauled her to her feet, and keeping one of her arms hiked high up the center of her back, Jim frog-marched the girl out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

And no sooner had he done so when the girl writhed like a snake, setting herself free once again, then grabbed Jim by the arm and sent him crashing into the workroom door!

…

It was uncanny! Artie's exclamation of " _Great Scott, what's that?"_ _—_ which he had come forth with as a mere distraction to gain him some precious time _—_ had been followed a heartbeat later by a sudden _crash!_ from somewhere down the hall toward the region of the dining room. All four of the captors flinched at the sound and whirled in that direction. "Elmer!" Count Manzeppi commanded. "Take Elmer and go investigate what caused that unholy din. Ah, and I should warn you: Mr West is on the loose, so watch your steps! Go at once."

The two men nodded and set off up the hall, even as Manzeppi turned again to gloat over his current captive. "You are going to die; you know that."

"Maybe. But now that I know Jim is out of your clutches, I can die happy."

Fury blazed up in the count's eyes at that retort. He raised the magic wand, growled out a string of profane syllables, and sent a fireball the size of a grapefruit blasting right past Artie's ear to crash into the door behind him. "Now that I have your undivided attention, sir," the magician intoned, "I will pose the query once more: where is Villar?"

"Ah…" Artie swiveled to look at the blackened circle now decorating the door, then turned back. "To tell you the truth, Count, I don't actually know where he is. He took off and didn't say where he was going. No forwarding address, so to speak." He added a small sickly smile.

Again the fury flamed in his captor's eyes. "Oh, you don't know where he is, and that's the honest truth, is it?"

"Well, actually, yes."

"Ah. I see, I see. Yes. Of course," murmured the count, nodding genially. Then in a heartbeat he went from cordial credulity to a snarling snit. "I want Villar back and I want him _now_. Do not lie to me, Mr Gordon!"

"Well, what do you want me to say?" Artie fired back. "That he took off in a hot-air balloon for parts unknown? I told you what I know, and that's the truth!"

"Ha! When you are an accomplished liar, sir, and nearly so proficient in the art of mendacity as I myself? You seek to _deceive_ me, Mr Gordon, to _bamboozle_ me _—_ me! _—_ and that I shall by no means tolerate! So know this, my noble if misguided adversary: I shall have the truth out of you, and that straightaway, even if I have to wave this wand and turn you into a…"

A cry of "Holy cow, it's Ariadne! _Run, Elmer!"_ interrupted him. And Melville, with a yelp of "Oh no, she's after my brothers!" tore off up the hallway, leaving his boss behind.

…

Jim hit the workroom door hard and bounced off again. No doubt about it, that girl was a little hellcat!

And here she came again, hands curled like claws. Jim ducked under her arms and threw himself at her, wrapping his arms around her as he bore her to the floor. Chivalrous instinct impelled him to twist as they fell so that he hit the floor first, cushioning her fall with his own body.

As he looked up into her eyes, he recognized what a bad move he'd made. An unholy glee lit her savage face as she made another slash at him with her clawed hands.

Jim grabbed her and rolled. Now she was on the bottom, and Jim grabbed her wrists, pinning her arms to the floor. Her legs flailed, trying to buck him off. "Ariadne, will you just listen to me?" he growled. "I don't want to hurt you; I'm trying to help you!"

At that moment the workroom door burst open and two men, each with a revolver in hand, peered out. They stared in stunned surprise at the man and woman on the floor. One of the two started to snicker and nudged the other with his elbow.

But the other, realizing what he was seeing, blanched and hollered, "Holy cow, it's Ariadne! _Run, Elmer!"_

They ran, slamming the door again behind them. Jim, a bit amused by the Elmers' hasty retreat, accidentally relaxed his grip on the girl's wrists by just a hair…

And Ariadne took advantage. Yanking loose both arms, she flung Jim to one side, then scrambled up and raced after the Elmers.

Jim bounded up as well and charged after her.

…

Manzeppi stood in the hallway, for once in his life put completely out of countenance as he gazed back and forth between the captive on one side of him and the retreating back of his last minion on the other. With a muttered blasphemy, he grabbed Mr Gordon's arm and snarled, "C'mon!"

Artie stumbled after him and promptly fell.

"Get up, you graceless buffoon. Can you not walk?"

"With all this netting around my legs? Are you kidding?"

The count snorted like a mad bull, then waved his hand. All the snare from Artie's waist downward vanished into wisps of smoke. Immediately Manzeppi seized him and hauled him to his feet again as the sound of crash after crash echoed down the hall to them.

"Mark my words, if I find that any of the equipage of my workroom has been obliterated, there shall indeed be Hell to pay!" the count growled as he strode down the hall, Artie in tow. They rounded the corner at which stood the sharp-bladed device Artie had always shuddered at the sight of, only to find a scene before them that took the breath of both men completely away.


	16. Act Four, Part Three

**Act Four, Part Three**

It was almost like a dance, a weird ballet with the prima ballerina a fiery hellion. She spun and leapt, grabbing one thing after another to fling at her foes, snarling and spitting as she rained punishment upon the men. Manzeppi's minions cowered before her.

Somehow in the interval before the count and Artie arrived, she had managed to disarm each gunman; their various weapons were strewn into the most inaccessible corners of the room. One of the Elmers was now in the act of trying to sneak past the girl to reclaim a revolver from atop the type case alongside the printing press, only to have the wild-eyed maenad whirl towards him, snatch up the world globe from its round brass stand, and heave it his way. With a yelp he dodged the two-foot wide sphere and dove for safety. And even as the globe shattered against the edge of a worktable, the other two minions tried a coordinated attack on the girl, only to be rewarded with an elbow to the solar plexus for the one man and a gouge from ear to clavicle for the other. Thus discomfited, both men shrank back and took cover from their ferocious opponent.

And Jim? Jim was leaning against the far door, arms folded and ankles crossed, watching the events with a critical eye. Spotting the newcomers in the other doorway, he called out, "Hey, Artie! You're not sick, are you? You look a little green."

Manzeppi, at last reacquiring his ability to speak, let out a bellow as if that of a bull elephant: " _What do you think you're doing?"_

The minions froze. The girl, giving a howl of predatory glee, used a handy Bunsen burner to belt the closest Elmer in the chops in passing as she raced around the nearest counter and charged at Manzeppi, claws at the ready, hatred shining from her eyes.

And the count, with an amazing show of agility for a man of his bulk, grabbed Artemus Gordon and thrust him in front of him as a human shield.

"Hey!" squawked Artie, his upper half still ensnared in that irksome net. Peripherally he spotted Jim shoving off the far door and dodging among the counters and worktables to come to his rescue, but the sight of the girl gnashing her teeth as she came rushing his way sent every other thought scurrying from Artie's head. "Ah… Good, uh, good morning, Miss Pearl," he ventured. "How-how-how are you doing this fine day?"

Her steps faltered; a look of bewilderment sprang up in her eyes. She looked around herself in amazement. "Wha?"

"That's not Pearl; that's Ariadne!" proclaimed Manzeppi from behind Artie's back. And as the crazed glint came up in the girl's eye again, the count shoved Artie right into her arms and cried, "To me, my men! Take up your weapons and come! We have a certain renegade ventriloquist to ferret out. And as for you, Mr West…" Completely ignoring the plight of the hapless Mr Gordon in the ruthless clutches of the mad young woman, Manzeppi pointed his magic wand at Jim and spoke a few arcane syllables. Instantly a twin of the vermilion snare that as yet held Artie entangled spewed forth to enmesh Jim as well.

"There!" the count exulted. "But it is indeed as I surmised, my dear Mr West: your disappearance from that stalwart birdcage earlier did not in fact herald your disappearance from my lair entirely! A man such as yourself could hardly resist the lure of playing knight in shining armor when there's a lovely young damsel in distress in the vicinity, is it not so?" He smirked immodestly. "And yet the ones in distress now are none other than you and your trusty companion. And therefore Mr West _—_ and you as well, Mr Gordon _—_ do enjoy!"

With that Manzeppi, accompanied by all three armed minions, whirled out the door and locked his enemies in with the savage Ariadne.

…

"Ariadne!" Jim cried out instantly even as he struggled against the encompassing vermilion net. "Leave him alone; it's me you want!"

With a joyous growl, the girl left off savaging Artie and sprang to her feet to rush for Jim.

"Aw, thanks, Jim! You are a real pal!" The bloodied and bruised Artie threw as well a meaningful glance of thanksgiving heavenwards, then rolled and struggled to his feet. It was only when he was upright and turned a look at his partner that he discovered…

"No! _Jim!_ You're netted just like me!"

Worse _—_ Manzeppi had released Artie's lower body from the snare, but the same was not true for Jim.

"Hey! _Hey!"_ yelled Artie, trying to tear the girl's attention away from her current prey and towards himself. "Leave him alone, Pearl!" he hollered.

The girl shook and half-turned a glance his way.

"She's not Pearl; she's Ariadne," said Jim.

Fury suffused her face as she whirled back towards him and lifted her hand in a claw.

"You sure about that, Jim? She sure looks like Pearl!"

Again the girl whipped about to stare at Artie.

"There's a good reason for that, but trust me, this is Ariadne."

With a howl she spun back towards Jim, then scrambled to her feet to grab the nearest heavy object off a worktable.

"So she and Pearl are twins? Villar didn't tell me that."

The girl dropped the televox back onto the worktable.

"That's because Manzeppi's dirty little secret is that there _is_ no Pearl. There's only one girl, and she's Ariadne."

Again the girl snatched up the televox.

"What?" exclaimed Artie. "But if that's the case, who's Pearl?"

"She's a hypnotic state the good count induced in our lovely Ari…" Jim began, only to be interrupted by the sound of the televox being flung into the printing press to the accompaniment of a voice screaming, "Stop it! Stop it, both of you!"

Both men turned to look at the young woman sobbing in the middle of the room. "Um… Aria…?" Artie began cautiously.

"Don't say it!" she cried in a passion. "Don't you dare say it again!"

"Ah… Pearl, then?" Jim essayed.

She whirled toward him. "Yes! Yes, I'm Pearl, and don't say again that I'm Ari… That other girl. Do you know what it's like? What I've been through just now while the two of you have been bandying both names back and forth, back and forth?" She clutched at her head. "First I'm here and then I'm not! I hear my name, I wake up. I hear hers, I disappear. It's maddening. Maddening!"

"Then…" Artie glanced at Jim. "Then it's true, isn't it? You really are Ar…" He shut up instantly at the savage look she shot at him. "I, I mean, you're, uh… really both girls all wrapped up in a single package."

She hid her face in her hands for a long moment before slowly nodding. "I… guess I am. You were right, Mr W… I mean, Jim. But it's a great shock! All these years, I thought she was… But all this time, _I_ was…" Suddenly she snatched her hands away and clenched them into fists. "And all this time, _he_ was… Oh! He was _lying_ to me! Making me think he _cared_ about me and my sister, when there never was a sister and never really a me either! I could kill him, that lying skunk! Kill him with my bare hands!"

Jim and Artie exchanged a glance. "You know, Pearl, if you really mean that…" Artie began.

"We'd actually prefer to bring Manzeppi in alive," Jim reminded him.

"True, true. But that doesn't mean Miss Pearl can't have a little fun with him before we arrest him, does it?"

She gaped at him, then at Jim as well. "Oh my goodness, you're all tangled up in those nets! And, and bloody too!" She held up her hands and winced at the sight of gore under her fingernails. "Mercy! Did I do that?"

"It's all right, Pearl, you didn't mean to," Artie put in quickly.

"Right," Jim added. "After all, you weren't exactly yourself."

She blinked, then gave a sharp, slightly hysterical laugh. "No, I suppose I wasn't!"

"But right now, Pearl, if you wouldn't mind finding a knife and letting us loose?" Jim hinted.

"Yeah," Artie agreed. "After all, we have a certain bat fastard to catch up with, and I have a sneaking suspicion I know exactly where he's going."

"You do? Good!" said Jim as Pearl cut him free. Pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his wounds, Jim asked, "Now. Where's the main cutoff valve for the gas?"

"Down in the kitchen," she replied, busily removing the snare from Artie as well. "Why?"

"Because you probably don't remember, but the gas lamps in your bedroom are broken and have been pouring out gas for quite a while now."

"Yikes!" Artie blurted. "Nobody strike a match!"

As soon as Pearl had freed him as well, Artie braved the noisome fumes in the girl's bedroom to fetch her a pair of shoes, using a handkerchief as an impromptu gas mask. And once she was shod and Jim had attended to the cutoff valve, the three of them rushed out of the lecture hall to flag down a cab for what they hoped would be a swift journey to the north.

…

"And that's why you're blue now, Artie?" said Jim.

"Yeah. Villar managed to make himself scarce — and good luck to him in avoiding Manzeppi for the rest of his life! — but once the count's voice spoke through Julio to summon the poor fellow back, I realized I had to do something to get the count off Jerome's back, and if ol' Manzeppi was expecting Villar, why should I disappoint him? Only problem being, of course, that he got the jump on me before I could… Wait a minute: _blue?_ What do you mean, blue? What happened to green?"

"I don't know," Jim grinned, enjoying this. "For that matter, what happened to brown?"

Artie sighed and rolled his eyes eloquently. "Brown, green, and now blue! That's what I get for entrusting the tweaking of a chemical formula to a man who can't tell one color from another!" He stared out the cab window for a moment at the passing buildings, then added, "And I don't even have the hyper-sober effect enhancing my senses anymore. I never should've tried to pretend I was Villar!"

"Oh but, Mr Gordon!" said Pearl encouragingly, laying her hand over his. "It's a very fetching shade of blue. Somewhere between, oh…" She considered a second. "Between lavender and periwinkle!" She dimpled sweetly at him.

"Lavender and periwinkle! That's somewhat poetic, but hardly a consolation, Miss Pearl!" But then, placing his other hand atop hers, he added winsomely, "Still, ah, thank you for your kind words, my dear. I'd be honored, you know, if you would call me Artemus." He smiled, turning up the charm.

" _Ahem!"_ came the sound of Jim clearing his throat. "Are we nearly there yet, Don Juan?"

"I thought he said his name was…" Pearl began to protest, even as Artie took another look out the window and confirmed, "Yes, this next block. Driver, turn right here, please!"

As soon as the cabbie had his fare in hand and drove on, the three found shelter around the corner from Jerome's house, and the two agents took turns peering out. "You sure Manzeppi's there?" said Jim.

"Well, considering it's a blind man's house and all the windows are brightly lit, I'd say _someone's_ in there with him, wouldn't you?"

"Could be Villar came back," Jim opined.

"Great Scott, I sure hope not!" Artie blanched a pallid shade of lilac. "We've got enough innocent parties to keep out of Manzeppi's clutches as it is! Speaking of which," and he turned to the girl. "Miss Pearl, I know I said you could have a little fun with the count before we arrest him, but, uh… now that I think it over, I'd really prefer you wait outside and stay out of danger."

Her eyebrows arched. "You think I can't take care of myself?"

"Well… we know Ari… that is, your other self can do that in spades, but she's a trifle, er…" Artie the wordsmith glanced at Jim to furnish him with the right thing to say.

"A little unpredictable," Jim supplied helpfully.

"Unpredictable?" said Pearl. "Really? When all she and I want to do is to revenge ourselves on that skunk of an uncle of ours?"

The agents shared a glance. "She has a point," said Jim.

"That she does, unfortunately," Artie was forced to agree.

"Still," said Jim decisively, "for the time being at least, let us go in first to deal with Manzeppi and the Melmans. You wait out here until we call you."

"But…!"

Jim smiled at her and gave her a kiss. "Just until we call you," he said.

"Oh. Well… All right, Jim."

"Good girl." He patted her on the cheek, then turned and consulted briefly with Artie before the two men slipped around the corner and made their cautious way up to the house.


	17. Act Four, Part Four

**Act Four, Part Four**

"Do not lie to me, Mr Fox! Villar was here; tell me where he has gone!"

"I've already told you: I don't know! He went outside while I was busy in the kitchen and he never came back in. Mr Gordon…"

"Yes, yes, yes, I have already heard what Mr Gordon had to say on the subject. Melville, Elmer, Elmer: loosen our esteemed host's tongue for him."

The three minions grinned among themselves. They had been keeping the blind man immobile for Count Manzeppi for a while now, but at these new orders, two of the hired thugs took firm grips on Jerome's arms and held him steady while the third set out ramming his fists into the poor fellow's belly over and over and over...

" _Hist!"_ called Manzeppi abruptly, lifting a hand for silence. "I heard something."

The minions let the captive sag to the floor while they helped their boss to listen. Shaking their heads, Melville spoke for them all. "What'd you hear, Boss? There ain't nothin'…"

Again the count waved for silence, his eyes darting about as he tried to ascertain the source of the trifling susurrus.

And then they all heard it, and not a slight noise either, for there now came a rapping upon the front door. And as Jerome gave a groan and tried to call out, "No, go away!" one of the Elmers slammed a hand over his mouth, suppressing the warning.

Still Manzeppi's hand was raised, maintaining the quietude of the room as they all waited.

Once more came the knocking, and this time with it a furtive voice hissed through the shut door. "C'mon, Jerome, let me in!" called the voice, and ah, how familiar it was! "Jerome, _please_ , open the door!" A pause, and then, "Hey, it's me: Villar! C'mon, buddy, I need your help. I'm in trouble, bad trouble, and I got nowhere else to turn!"

And at that an evil smirk spread across Manzeppi's face. His upraised hand gave a twist and plucked from midair his staff of office as a conjurer, his magic wand. He mouthed the name, "Melville," and gave a nod toward the door.

Melville nodded in return and slipped quietly to the door, grabbed the knob, and ducked behind the door even as he yanked it open. With a stream of diabolic phrases, Manzeppi aimed the wand at the doorway and shot forth yet another cloud of vermilion smoke to enmesh… to enmesh…

The count frowned, his eyebrows knitting. There was no one on the doorstep!

"Looking for us, Count?"

The voice came from behind Jerome's unwelcome guests, all of whom had been focused on the doorway. The four now whirled to see…

"Why, what an unpleasant surprise, Mr West! I had no doubt but that you and your confrère would never again emerge from the straits in which I had immured you!"

"That's what you get for thinking," muttered Artie, helping Jerome up off the floor.

"And I dare say you, Mr Gordon, were the source of that…" Manzeppi smirked, "…that _inimitable_ voice we all heard just now, the voice of our cherished colleague Villar! You couldn't resist the opportunity to take another stab at pulling the wool over my eyes by pretending to be him, now could you?"

"You'll notice it worked too, Count," Jim pointed out coldly. "And now, in case you haven't guessed, the time for fun and games is over. Instead it's time to surrender. You and your boys are all under arrest."

"Ah! Indeed, are we?" chuckled Manzeppi. "To quote that eminent emperor of old Herodotus," and here he waggled his eyebrows at Jim, " _vos et quod exercitus?_ Or, to put in in the vernacular, gentlemen: 'You and what army?'"

The count smirked, then made another of his lightning-fast changes of demeanor. "For you see, Mr West, I have unfinished business here. My fun and games, as you have phrased it, are only just beginning. Something has been stolen from me, and I will never, ever, ever, _ever!_ cease to seek for it until I have it once again in my possession. And this you know, Mr West. We spoke previously of an ocean of blood, and if need be I will yet again spill such a prodigious amount of that vital fluid in order to acquire once again that treasure above all treasures!" His eyes for a shining moment gazed as if upon Elysium, only to darken with fury a moment later. "And therefore, sir, I say to you: No! No, no, and a thousand times no! I will _never_ give up, _never_ surrender, for I have a quest, and if in the fulfillment of that quest I must needs tear the world apart _—_ nay, the galaxy itself! _—_ then so be it! Villar stole from me the Philosopher's Stone, and _—_ look you! Look you all! _—_ I _will_ have it back!"

"Oh, that!" said Artie in disgust, just emerging from Jerome's bedroom into which he had eased the poor injured blind man. "All this fuss and bother over that cheesy little thingamabob! You want the Philosopher's Stone? Here, I'll give you the Philosopher's Stone!" Propping his foot up on the sofa, Artie rolled down his sock and untied Villar's handkerchief from around his calf, then unfurled the cloth to reveal a small round blackness cradled within it, a blackness shimmering with just a hint of stars.

"There it is, and there it goes!" exclaimed Artie. And with that he flung the Stone onto the floor.

And stomped on it.

 _WHOOMP!_ The explosion threw Artie backwards to land on his keister. A sulfurous smell permeated the room, the effluvium being accompanied by a howl of heartrending anguish.

"The Stone! The precious, ineffable, irreplaceable Philosopher's Stone! You destroyed it! You _disintegrated_ it! You, you heathen! You barbarian! You unmitigated Philistine! You broke it, Mr Gordon, and for that I'll break you!" And with that, Manzeppi raised his hand to wield the magic wand once more.

Jim, however, was in no mood to wait till all the speechifying was over and done with. He sprang at the count and plowed right into him, bowling the great man over. Following his partner's example, Artie leapt to his feet and plowed into the pair of Elmers, fists flying.

Melville's first instinct was to rush to his brothers' aid, and it was only his boss' plea of, "To _me_ , my good man, to _me!"_ that changed his mind. He charged at West and knocked him back, then reached for his gun.

Jim's foot came out of nowhere and kicked the gun away. And before Melville could react, Jim West tackled him, sending them both rolling across the floor, punching and slugging.

Artie was having a bit harder job than his partner from trying to fight two men at once. He gained a little respite by knocking one of the Elmers over the sofa, leaving himself space to concentrate on the other. And by the time he floored that one and whirled back to the first, fully expecting the man to jump him at any time…

He spotted Jim taking out the remaining Elmer and saw Melville also stretched out on the floor, out cold. "That's all three!" Artie exclaimed.

"With one man missing," Jim replied. "Where's Manzeppi?"

"Oh great! Don't tell me he got away again!" moaned Artie. Both he and Jim raced for the open door and charged out into the yard.

Where they heard, to their surprise, more moaning. "No, no, Ariadne, I beg of you…! No, that is, _Pearl!_ Pearl my precious, my inestimable jewel! Kindly unhand me, my darling girl, and desist in this untoward, unladylike behavior! I beg you! I grovel!"

"You shut up!" came the reply, followed by the sounds of smacking and pummeling, along with renewed begging and moaning.

"But, but, Pearl! Surely you know who I am! Surely you will obey your dear old uncle!"

"My 'dear old uncle' lost any claim of my obedience _or_ my respect when I learned he'd duped me into thinking I was Pearl. Well, I'm not. _I'm Ariadne!_ And I'm your worst nightmare come to life!"

Jim and Artie exchanged a glance, then darted around the side of the house toward the stable. And there they saw the unrivaled sight of Manzeppi cowering on his knees before the onslaught that was his erstwhile niece.

"No! No! _Aaa!_ No, please, _please_. I, I adjure you! By all the foul fiends of the Abyss, by the satanic hands that made you, by the… _oof!"_ Here Manzeppi's voice broke off into wheezing as Pearl _—_ or, no: Ariadne _—_ pounded him solidly in the belly, knocking all the breath out of him.

"And right as he was about to come out with one his long-winded spells full of monstrous blasphemy, the kind that just about make your ears bleed! James my boy, I think I'm in love; can we keep her?"

Jim shot him a look. "Artie, we still have to arrest Manzeppi. And preferably in one piece."

"Oh, yeah. Right. Then we'd better go help, huh?"

"Exactly." Jim started toward the hapless count and his tormentor, only to have Artie stop him with "Ah… Ok, Jim, so just tell me: which of them are we going to help?"

Again Jim shot his partner a look. And at that moment Manzeppi managed to regain enough air in his massive torso to wheeze out, "Have it your way then, Ariadne! I would have spared you, but no! And therefore by the sulfurous name which none may speak unscathed, I hereby pronounce upon you… _urf!"_

For Jim at that moment came up behind the enraged count unseen and stuffed his handkerchief into the magician's mouth, quickly tying the gag tightly around the back of the count's head. And as Manzeppi huffed and sputtered at the indignity, lifting his hands to _zhing!_ them at Jim, Artie whipped out a pair of handcuffs and shackled the count's wrists safely behind his back.

With a smile and a nod, the agents shook hands.

Only to realize a moment later that the fact that Manzeppi was now bound, gagged, and helpless did not put an end to the lovely young wildcat's attacks upon him. With a snarl of delight, she continued hitting him, clawing him, spitting on him and kicking at him _—_ and this time, Jim noted with a wince of sympathy, while wearing a pair of shoes that came equipped with high heels and pointy toes.

"It's all right now, Miss Pearl!" Artie intervened. "He's been captured. He can't do any magic without the use of his hands or voice. You can stop now!"

"Ha!" was her only reply, and she went right back to hitting him.

"Pearl, stop it!" Jim commanded. He reached out to grab her, but she slipped from his grasp like water and glared at him, panting, her eyes wild.

" _I'm not Pearl!"_ she declared yet again. "I'm Ariadne. And that man is mine!" She whirled and kicked him in his portly belly.

"Ah… Jim?" said Artie. "I… I'm not entirely sure about this, but…" He thumped at his nose with a forefinger. "Didn't… didn't Ariadne only growl and snarl before? It was only Pearl who could talk, wasn't it?"

"We can discuss philosophy later, Artie. Right now we just need to keep her from killing him!" And on the ground at their feet, the trussed-up Manzeppi nodded his head vigorously, his eyes eloquently pleading for help.

To the surprise of all, help then arrived. The sweet, compelling strains of Chopin's _Nocturne in E Flat_ floated out from the back of the little house as Jerome stepped out the kitchen door. He limped closer, his violin tucked under his chin, the bow skimming lightly and expertly over the strings.

Ariadne shuddered all over, the anger draining from her eyes. A peaceful smile tugged at the corners of her mouth; her hands arose and began plucking at the air as if catching butterflies. Jerome smiled at her, still playing, and murmured, "My dear, why don't you come into the house? You've done well, and now it's time to rest."

And as the melody yet wove its spell around the girl, Jerome turned to head back to the house with the unaccountably gentled Ariadne dancing along right after him.

 **End of Act Four**


	18. Tag

**Tag**

"And that," said Artie in satisfaction as he closed the front door of Jerome's house, "takes care of Count Manzeppi _et alii_."

"Now they're in the hands of the law where they belong," said Jim.

"Yeah, I just hope the local constabulary doesn't find them to be too much of a burden!"

"Everything should be fine as long as they do as we told them and not remove the shackles or the gag from… what did you call him, Artie? The bat fastard?"

"Oh, that was Villar's nickname for him! Which reminds me: where, ah…?" Artie looked around Jerome's front room, noting how much more sparsely furnished it was than before, and noting particularly the absence of the photograph of Mrs Fox from the mantelpiece. "Where did all the, ah, the, uh… well…"

"Where did all the gold go?" Jerome supplied from his seat on the sofa, an amazingly tranquil Ariadne leaning against his side.

Artie gave a cough. "Oh, so I didn't sneak all that stuff in past you after all!"

Jerome grinned. "I told you, Artemus! I always knew when those scoundrels had searched my house _—_ and really, I'd heard Frank describe that man as the boss from Hell, but I never realized just how literally he meant it until now! _—_ but if I could tell when they had been in here and disturbed things, how much more could I tell when you brought in things that weren't exactly what they had once been?"

"Oh," said Artie, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Yeah, I guess so…"

"And besides," the blind man continued, "it's not like that was the first time some of my things got exchanged for gold replicas. Frank was making a habit of it."

"And Frank is…?" Jim inquired.

"Oh, that's Villar," Artie offered.

"Yes, that's what I call him," Jerome confirmed. "Which is why, by the way, when somebody knocked at my door a little earlier while those goons were here and begged to be let in claiming to be _Villar_ , I knew at once it couldn't be Frank. He wouldn't have used that name with me." He tilted his head at Artie. "But you knew that."

"Yeah. But I wasn't trying to fool you. You weren't in charge of the door, and they _were."_

"True, true. Anyway, about Frank. It must have been, oh, four months ago or so that he was helping me with my deliveries one morning when we stopped at an Italian restaurant and found the proprietress having a royal conniption fit and…"

"Ah, yes. Frank told me! That would be Mama Angelina, wouldn't it?" Artie nudged Jim with an elbow.

"Mama Angelina? The cook? She's involved in this?"

"Yeah, somehow she got hold of a certain little toy chicken! It was in the front window of her restaurant, Villar told me…"

"…and also in that window were a bunch of her son's old tin soldiers that had inexplicably turned into gold soldiers!" Jerome broke in. "It wasn't long after that that I found a few things scattered about the house that weighed a good bit more than they used to. Frank's way of paying for my hospitality, I assume. And then today, when he disappeared and I noticed as I was tidying up that you'd brought in a bunch more altered things… Well, I figured if there was new gold and Frank was gone, I could probably expect a brand new visit from the old boss, so I hid everything." He nodded in the direction of the door. "It's all out in the stable, hidden under a pile of manure."

Jim winced, and Artie blanched — his face actually turning a pale shade of normal for the first time since he'd taken the sober-up formula. "Even the photograph of your wife?" he blurted.

"Oh, only the fancy new frame. I tucked the picture away inside the violin." He paused and frowned. "So that dingus Frank had: he hid it here?"

Artie nodded. "Yes, right inside poor ol' Julio's head."

"And it really was the Philosopher's Stone?"

"Yes, that it was."

"And," Jim put in, rejoining the conversation, "it really is destroyed?"

"What," Artie protested, "you think I faked that? It blew up under my foot! I landed right on my… er…" He glanced at the girl in the room and reconsidered the end of his sentence. "Well, I landed right on the floor, didn't I? And you think that was faked?"

Jim grinned. "As affronted as you are that I doubted you? Now I _know_ you faked it!"

Artie grinned in reply. "Yeah, you know me too well! Yup, that was a fake Philosopher's Stone. That was the thing I needed to keep you in the dark about, Jerome. You see, I took one of the jawbreakers from those boxes marked 'Gobstoppers' over there, coated it with a thin layer of my handy-dandy explosive putty, then added a little paint job to make it look like the real thing."

"And of course you never let Manzeppi get near enough to examine it," said Jim.

"Right. And that's how that little miracle came to past." Artie beamed proudly.

"But if that's the case," Ariadne spoke up suddenly, "then what became of the real thing?"

"Ah! That, my friends, is the sixty-four dollar question!" said Artie. "Behold!" He crossed to the stack of boxes, picked out a certain one and opened it with a flourish, then reached inside. "As long as I was disguising a jawbreaker as the Philosopher's Stone, I figured I might as well disguise the Philosopher's Stone as a jawbreaker! It's right in here. Uh. Somewhere." He rummaged through the colorful little orbs, muttering to himself. "Now I know I painted it over to look like all the rest, and then I made a mark on it so I could pick it out from the others again… No, not this one. Or this… Wait, this is it! Or, or maybe this…"

Jim cocked an eyebrow at him. "Artie, don't tell me you've lost it."

"No, no, it's not lost. Not exactly. It's right here; I know it is! Just… I'm not sure precisely which one…"

Jerome hid his face behind a hand. "Artemus, I need to deliver those to my customer! I don't want anyone trying to eat a jawbreaker and chomping down on the Philosopher's Stone instead!"

"No, no, it's right here. I'm sure of it. It's one of these four. Whoops, make that five."

"Five? Artie, you've got five potential Philosopher's Stones in your hand? How're you going to find which one's the real thing?"

Artie stared at the candies in his hand for a moment, muttering, "I was wrong: _that_ is the sixty-four dollar question! And how do I…? A _ha!"_ He snapped his fingers and headed into the kitchen. "Mr Fox, if I could just borrow from you a drinking glass and a little water to fill it, I think we may have the answer!"

…

"You sure about that, Artie?"

"They're candies, Jim. They gradually melt in water. That's how jawbreakers eventually get smaller and smaller in your mouth, you know."

Jim pointed at the glass. "Yeah, but they've been sitting there in the glass of water for what, half an hour? I don't see much difference yet."

Ariadne leaned in to peer closely at them. "I don't know, Mr W… Jim. That one there looks like it's sitting in a tiny pool of red, and then that other one has a bit of yellow under it…"

"Yes," said Artie excitedly, "but _this_ one isn't changing at all!" His fingers dove into the glass and pulled out the jawbreaker in question. Taking a kitchen knife from a drawer, he scraped gently at the little orb, murmuring, "C'mon. Come to Papa, baby! You've got to be the only one in the whole box that's been painted… Ah!"

For a thin strip of color came loose, then another. He worked the tip of the knife under the resulting edge, and moments later…

"There you go, Jim!" The rest of the paint peeled away in one piece, and in triumph Artie dropped the unveiled Philosopher's Stone into his partner's hand.

Jim held it up and examined it. "Well, I'd have to say that the fake you destroyed was a pretty good copy of this. It looks almost black enough to be a little hole of nothing, yet when you look closer…"

"I know, Jim." Artie leaned in and gazed at it, enraptured. "The heart of it is full of stars."

"Mm-hmm," said Jim. He folded the treasure of all treasures inside his handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket. "Well, now that we've recovered this, we can get out of your hair, Mr Fox."

"Please, it's Jerome."

"Jerome." Jim shook the blind man's hand, then turned to the girl. "And what about you, Pearl? Ariadne, I mean. What are you going to do now?"

"Me? I… I hardly know. I don't have a home to go back to any more, nor any family that I can recall. Uncle Elroy _—_ or Count Manzeppi, of course _—_ took me from someone; I know that. But he was a robber, so I'd rather not try to find him and go back to him. And yet… Where am I to go?"

"Ah…" put in Artie. "Jim just called you Pearl, and afterwards Ariadne. That doesn't bother you anymore? I know earlier you complained of the one name awakening you and the other making you disappear."

She blinked in surprise. "Oh! Oh, you're right! Do it again, Jim."

Jim obliged. "Pearl. Ariadne. Pearl. Ariad…"

Abruptly she beamed and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, it's wonderful! I'm not shifting back and forth anymore. I… I think it's that I know who I am now! I'm me: Ariadne. And I remember everything! All the years when I was growing up as Pearl, all the schools I went to. Everything! Isn't it marvelous?"

But then her face fell. "I remember it all. I have myself back now. But what I don't have is…" She sighed, tears springing to her eyes. "…is… anywhere I belong." She buried her face on Jim's shoulder and wept.

"Now, now," said a soft voice, and Jerome laid a hand on her arm. Gently he turned her out of Jim's arms and into his own. "There, there, my dear. Of course you have somewhere you belong. You can stay here! I don't have any family left either, but I do have this house, and you're welcome to live here as long as you'd like."

She leaned back to peer into his face. "But… Really?"

"Of course you can! You could be like a daughter to me. A sweet loving child, someone to whom I can teach all my precious candy-making secrets. Wouldn't you like that?"

"I… I don't know. I… I'm dangerous, you know. I mean, you saw what I did to my previous uncle, didn't you?"

Jerome chuckled. "Saw it? No. _Heard_ it? Oh yes! But that's not a problem. Not a problem at all."

"Is that a fact?" said Jim.

"Yeah, how can you be sure of that, Jerome?" added Artie.

The blind man beamed broadly. "Because I still have my violin, and we all know that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast!" He took the girl's hands in his own. "So what do you say, Ariadne? Would you like to live here, at least for a little while until you can get on your feet again?" He smiled hopefully at her.

"I… I…" All at once she burst out laughing. "Yes. Yes, I think I'd like that very much!" And she flung her arms around him in a big hug.

…

"Well," said Artie as he and Jim let themselves into the parlor car of the Wanderer once more, "I said it before and I'll say it again: 'And so home!'" He stripped off his jacket and dropped it onto a chair.

"And if you'd like to quote another literary reference, 'All's Well that Ends Well,'" Jim added, tossing his hat onto the desk.

"True, true." Artie shook his head. "What a girl that was, though! I hope she and Jerome will be happy together, and that she never reverts to the old Ariadne again with the hands like…" He lifted his hands, fingers curled into claws, and shuddered.

Jim took a seat on one of the sofas and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. "And all that's left now is to deal with this thing."

"Yeah," said Artie soberly, looking at the little black hole in the fabric of existence. "What _do_ we do with it? Y'know, Villar gave it to me saying he hoped I'd make better choices with it than he had."

Jim glanced around at the parlor. "Hmm… So what do you think, Artie? You think this place would look better with a few items of gold? Say, that barometer on the wall there. I mean, it's already silver, but…"

Artie's eyebrows shot up. "You're not serious, are you, Jim?"

"Or the little cannon on the mantelpiece. And maybe the statue over there at the cabinet, the one that pivots out of sight for us to hide a revolver under it." Jim chuckled. "And for that matter, our revolvers! Wouldn't you like to have another golden gun that fires a golden bullet, Artie?"

"Ah…" Artie stared at his partner, eyes wide with horror.

And then Jim hopped up and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. "I'm kidding, Artemus. If nothing else, Orrin Cobb would have our hides if we laded this train down with gold. How would he ever get the engine to pull so much weight?"

"Ah…" Artie said again, still not quite sure whether Jim had been ribbing him before or was teasing him now.

"What we'll do," said Jim briskly as he tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket again, "is wait for the cover of darkness, and then we'll go rent a rowboat so we can drop this thing over the side into the bay, just like Villar claimed he had done."

"Oh, we will? Oh, good!" Artie sighed with relief.

Jim frowned. "Unless…"

Artie clapped his hands to the sides of his face. "What do you mean by 'unless,' Jim! Unless _what?"_

Jim grinned at him. "Unless you think we'd better go toss it in the bay right now." He shook his head playfully. "C'mon, Artie, you worry too much. Get a grip!"

"Oh! Oh, I see! You think I need to get a grip on myself, huh? And after the way you've just been pulling my leg? If you don't want me to worry so much, then stop giving me reasons to worry!" He grabbed up a cushion off the sofa and threw it at his snickering partner. "And another thing…!" he began.

"Wait a minute, Artie. Somebody's knocking." Both men straightened up, and Jim answered the door. "Yes?"

A young policeman stood on the rear platform tugging nervously at his collar. "Um… Mr West? Mr Gordon? I really hate to bother you, but, uh…"

Artie came to stand at his partner's side. "But, uh, _what_ , Sergeant?" asked Jim.

"We, um… we seem to have, er… misplaced one of the prisoners you gentlemen handed over to us."

Jim shot a glance at Artie, who for his part rolled his eyes expansively and slammed a hand onto the desk. " _Misplaced?"_

The policeman winced. "Yes sir. We put all four men into the cells, and three of them just sat down on their cots. But the fourth, the big guy… Well, he was acting like he was sick or something, like he couldn't breathe, you see. So we, ah…"

"So you took off his gag, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mr West."

"Shackles too?"

"That's right, Mr Gordon."

"Let me guess: as soon as your backs were turned, you heard something that sounded like _zhing!_ Am I right?"

The policeman gaped. "How'd you know that, Mr West?"

"And the bat fastard was gone, huh?"

"I… I'm sorry, Mr Gordon, the _what_ was gone?"

Artie sighed. "Never mind! So Manzeppi's escaped, has he?"

"Ah… well, yes sir. Yes, he has. The other three are still there, but the big guy… yeah, he's… he's gone."

Now Jim sighed. "It never stops, does it, Artie?"

"Yeah, we're right back where we started!"

"Tell your chief we'll be there shortly, Sergeant," said Jim.

"Yes sir!" The young fellow saluted smartly and rushed away.

"Great!" grumbled Artie, grabbing up the jacket he'd just taken off. "So now we've gotta go catch him all over again! Why couldn't somebody have taken us seriously when we said to keep him gagged and chained, huh?" Again he sighed. "Well, whaddaya think, Jim? Should we head to the police station first or go right on over to the lecture hall? Or maybe…" he paused and grimaced. "Oh, no! You don't suppose he's gone back to Jerome's, do you? After all, I broke the Philosopher's Stone right in front of him, so surely he wouldn't…"

"No, you're right, Artie. He's not likely to go looking for the Philosopher's Stone again. So you know what that means."

Artie paused for a second, his jacket still half on, half off. "I… I do?"

"Of course you do! It means that instead of heading to the station _or_ to the lecture hall right away, we need to go right down to the harbor. Immediately."

Artie gaped at him, then laughed as he shoved his other arm into its sleeve. "James my boy, I like how you think. Let's go!" And moments later they were striding off across the railroad yards to hail themselves a carriage and go see a man about a boat.

 **FIN**


End file.
